


"A Grace and Staying"

by 3_Patch_Problem_Child



Category: Law & Order: SVU, Oz (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cannon Compliant up to L&O:SVU Season 7:06 "Raw", Coming Out, Dirty Talk, Drama, Elliot is confused, First Time, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I stink at tags, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ issues, M/M, Mentions of past child abuse, Mutual Masturbation, Oz Post Season 6, Please protect yourself, Porn with Feelings, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Smut, Toby is a BAMF, Triggers, Trust Issues, fluffy feels, seriously, there is a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:36:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 34,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3_Patch_Problem_Child/pseuds/3_Patch_Problem_Child
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Tobias Beecher is released from Oz, after serving 9 years for vehicular manslaughter, he is raped, brutalized, and left for dead in Central Park. Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson catch the case. Toby looks for redemption and Elliot finds something he never thought he wanted.</p><p>Title is from the Joshua Beckman poem [Lying in bed I think about you]<br/>(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177709)</p><p>Non-Beta'd...but don't be gentle. Please ConCrit is absolutely welcome!</p><p>No money was made by my shamelessly playing with characters made up by Mr. Fontana and Mr. Wolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers will appear at the beginning of each chapter. Chapters posted at least weekly until completed. First Chapter Triggers: Rape/Non-con references, memories/PTSD flashback-type experiences. Please be careful and care for yourself. 
> 
> Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network: www.rainn.org  
> National Sexual Violence Resource Center: www.nsvrc.org

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit is always welcome!!!!! Comments make me do a happy dance of happiness!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: for mentions of rape/non-con, references to PTSD flashback experiences. Please Protect Yourself.

The elevator doors slid open onto a well-lit, bustling hallway. Detective Elliot Stabler stepped onto the unit. He was struck by the familiar scent of industrial disinfectant and rubbing alcohol underscored with the sweet stench sick beds and sweat.  He hated hospitals. Stabler spotted, his partner Olivia talking with one of Sexual Assault Team Nurses outside of a patient room. Olivia looked tired, her chestnut hair was tugged back in a messy pony tail and her face was pale. The jeans and sweater she had scrounged from the bottom of her locker were rumpled. The sag of her shoulders and the way she scrubbed her face with one hand told him everything he needed to know.

She caught Stabler’s eye and he saw her nod toward him and leave the nurse’s side.

“Wow, El, you look as wonderful as I feel right now.  When was the last time you slept?”

He huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Pot” He pointed to her and then to himself. “Meet Kettle. What have we got?”

“Same. Just waiting on the doc to fill us in on current status. MO is identical as the last three, raped, beaten, and cut.”

“Is the victim awake?”

“No.” Olivia stared hard at the floor. “It’s worse than the others.” She looked over toward the nurse. “Patti told me this guy has evidence of long term trauma, multiple sexual assaults, some of the scars are old. Said it’s no wonder he’s not waking up.” 

“Christ.” Elliot looked into the room and saw a man about his age lying flat on his back, his chest wrapped tight. He had a nasal cannula in place for oxygen but he seemed to be holding his own. His face was a palette of bruising from deep purple to yellow with one eye swollen shut. His arms were bare and Elliot could see the small round red marks that indicated cigarette burns. “Do we even know who he is?”

“They left his ID on him along with a mug shot that they taped to his chest.” Olivia pulled a paper out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Parks and Rec worker found him naked in the Park. North Woods by the Loch and called it in. CSU is still out there at the scene. Vic’s name is Tobias Beecher. I called Munch when I got here. He should have his background soon enough.”

“Let me guess, no one saw anything?”  

“Fin is canvasing with some uniforms but you know how it goes. That part of the Park is all woods. Preliminary findings say he was dumped about 12 hours ago based on his body temp and condition when he was found. Someone wanted him seen because they left him along a path the Parks and Rec guy swears he takes every morning.”

Stabler rubbed his neck. He was bone tired. This was the fourth attack in as many days and no one in SVU was sleeping.  Three other men terrorized and left on display. Each attack was more brutal than the last and each man was marked with a single word. There was no connection between the victims other than the three previous men had been incarcerated at one some point in time. Different prisons, different crimes, each man was a non-violent offender when they went inside, not your typical skel. No repeat offenses, for all intents and purposes each man looked like they had done their time and tried to keep themselves clean. He knew the talk around the precinct. Some of the old timers considered this a non-issue, as long as it was dirt bags taking out dirt bags and no honest citizens were involved. The attitude made Stabler’s stomach churn. Rape was rape, whatever these men had done before was not his problem. Elliot’s shoulders ached and he felt the tendrils of a headache beginning to snake along his scalp. The sweatshirt he had pulled on after a half hour nap in the crib at the Precinct smelled like the yesterday’s socks and his eyelids were like sandpaper. Elliot pointed toward the victim’s chest. “What did they carve this time?”

“You want to take a guess?  Same as the last three. PRAG.”  

“Do we know where this one served time?”

“Oz.” A sharp, clear voice interrupted the two detectives banter. Elliott turned on his heel. A small, older woman in a black turtleneck sweater and grey slacks stood a few feet from Olivia and Elliot. The woman had curled salt and pepper hair that was more steel gray salt than pepper. A pair of glasses hung around her neck on a chain next to a silver crucifix. She was no taller than Elliot’ shoulder but his inner Alter Boy took immediate note of the ring on her right hand and the sensible black rubber-soled shoes. 

She looked into Elliot’s face and her face paled. One of her hands fluttered around her throat like a moth bumping against a window on a muggy summer night.

Elliot’s reached out to offer a hand and she shot backwards bumping into a passing nurse. 

“Has he seen you?” She whispered to Elliot.

“I’m sorry, are you here to see Mr. Beecher?”  Olivia asked, stepping around to put herself between her partner and the stranger.

“Who…please, he can’t see you.” The woman closed her eyes for a moment. Olivia placed a hand on the woman’s elbow and led her toward a visitor’s lounge. The room was furnished with a few single chairs and a couch of blonde wood and a cheery mint green pleather. The overhead fluorescent lights were off and the room was lit by a large lamp that sat on an end table in one of the corners. Several ragged gossip magazines were spread on a low coffee table in the center of the room.  It was utilitarian hospital furniture arranged to give the impression of home. Olivia led the woman to one of the chairs and allowed her to sit and settled in on the couch facing the her. Elliot hung back at the door, standing off to the side out of the woman’s site line.

“May I ask,” Olivia began.

“Sister Peter Marie.”  The woman looked at Elliot. He saw fear and confusion.  “I…” She began and stopped, clutched at her elbows and started again. “I work at Oswald State Correctional, Oz. I know Tobias, he was…” Elliot watched a war going on behind her eyes as she decided how much to share. “I am the Psychologist there, but we kept in touch after his release.” The fear and confusion was replaced by a deep sadness. “I came as soon as I could.”

“He’s still unconscious, Sister.” Olivia’s voice was soft and compassionate. She let the words hang in the silence between the three. Chatter from the hallway bled into the room. “May I ask how you knew he was here.”

“His brother called me when the hospital called him.”  Olivia’s eyebrows skated toward her hairline. Sister Peter Marie responded to Olivia’s unasked question. “Their relationship is complicated and Tobias and I have had a long road together.”

“So you stayed close after he was released?”

“Close” isn’t a word that we use to often in Oz. I care what happens to Tobias if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, Mr. Beecher,” Olivia paused, “Tobias has been critically injured, can you think of anyone who would want to hurt him?”

The small nun looked into Elliot’s eyes, her smile was grim. “Yes.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit is always welcome!!!!! Comments make me do a happy dance of happiness!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: for mentions of rape/non-con, references to PTSD flashback experiences. Please Protect Yourself.

Consciousness began to seep into the cracks in the darkness. Tobias Beecher felt a desperate ache in his bones as he cast about in the black to remember where he was.  The steady beep of a monitor and the shuffle of feet. Oz. Infirmary. He lifted his arms.  Searing pain followed the movement but there were no restraints.  His left leg was immobilized. Breathing hurt. His ribs were broken. Beecher let the black flow through him, chasing his memories. Despair and anger began to coalesce in his gut as images rose to the surface and then faded fast. 

Men laughing. Pain. Begging. He was begging. Not Chris. Not Vern. This was a new pain. Not years ago. Not Chris. Pain. Never Chris. Never again. 

The despair and anger swirled inside his chest now, bursting into his throat. A scorching, bitter bile. He throttled the sound and blinked into the moment as the vision receded.

Hospital. He was in a hospital. A soft voice beside him. Quiet, compassionate.

“Mr. Beecher. My name is Detective Olivia Benson; can you understand me?” 

He nodded. Then another voice. So familiar, so kind. “Tobias. Thank God.”

He turned his head, wincing, and saw Sister Peter Marie at his bedside. “Sist…” He started, swallowed a mouthful of sand, and began to cough. His body was on fire. Sister Peter Marie offered him a spoon with some ice chips and he let them melt on his tongue. He tried again. It came out in a hoarse whisper. “Sister Pete?”

“Tobias, do you know where you are?”

“Hospital.”

“Mr. Beecher, this may be very difficult but I need to know if you remember what has happened to you?”  He looked toward the other. Almond shaped eyes the color of a buck hare’s coat at full summer and a plush mouth. A strong jaw and square face framed by wisps of chocolate brown and honey blond.  She looked as worn as he felt. 

“Attacked?”

 “Yes. You were attacked. You’re safe. You’re at Mercy Hospital.”

 A man’s voice rose over the others and the grasp that Tobias Beecher had on the howl that was trapped inside him began to loosen. “Doc, look, he just woke up, my partner is in with him right now, all I’m asking is that you give us a few minutes.”

“Detective Stabler, please.” 

Tobias Beecher turned toward these new voices and he began to keen. His back arched upward. The fire in his body spreading as the now and the never again collided while the darkness rose again to claim him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit is always welcome!!!!! Comments make me do a happy dance of happiness!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: for mentions of rape/non-con, references to PTSD flashback experiences. Please Protect Yourself.

Elliot Stabler stared at the board in the noisy squad room. Four victims, each one more battered than the next.  The smell of brewing coffee made his stomach summersault. Elliot looked at the faces one by one and imagined the force behind each blow that distended and wrecked jaws and cheekbones. He winced.  

"Where’s Liv?” Munch asked.

“She’s still at the hospital waiting for our latest victim to wake up. Again.”                 

“I hear he took one look at your ugly mug and passed out.” Fin chuckled.

“The nun explained that.” Elliot shifted in his seat and looked everywhere but at Munch. “I look like his ex…something.” Elliot’s rubbed his eyes with his palms. “I’ve been staring at this board for hours, we’ve looked at every angle, blood type, toothpaste, everything and I can’t see a connection between these guys.”  

Munch chuckled and slapped a folder on Elliot’s desk.

“Seek and ye shall find, my friend."

“What’s this?"                 

“The answer to your query.”                 

“Vernon Schillinger?”  Elliot looked to the board. “Who is this, another victim?”

 “Nein.”  Munch crossed his arms and smiled. “Guess again                 

“Munch, have pity on the man.”  Fin threw out as he sauntered over to the coffee pot.

“Fin, your revelations lack flare and finesse.”                 

“Want me to smack you? Just tell us what you got.”

Munch huffed. “Philistines. He is our connection. Mr. Schillinger was an upstanding member of the Aryan Brotherhood. A Nazi who occupied several of our fine state establishments before checking out of Oswald State Correctional Facility a few years ago less a useful amount of blood.”

 “What’s that have to do with our vics?"                 

“Turns out the Brotherhood honors a rather Viking-like tradition when it comes to the property of deceased.” 

“Now I’m confused, I thought the Vikings set stuff on fire. I mean, last I checked these guys were beaten, raped, and cut on.  Plus, we’re talking about people, not boats or chickens.” 

“I’m guessing that our perp is not exactly a gentleman and a scholar. When a leader died, his property went to the new person in power, all of it, to do with as he pleased.”

“I don’t follow.” Fin said looking at the file over Elliot’s shoulder.

“Ah, the devil is in the details.” Munch fanned an array of four photographs in front of Elliott and Fin. “Notice these brands? Each of our victims were branded by Schillinger as property. The man was a sexual sadist. They were systematically raped and traded like bubble gum cards until he got bored and had them killed or they got out somehow. These four managed to get away.”

Elliot’s eyes widened. “So, someone is claiming Schillinger’s property?”

“That’s what it looks like, Schillinger was a leader in the movement. When he died, a power vacuum opened up. Someone is stepping up and rebranding.”

“That’s cold.” Fin shook his head. “I mean, I know they were on the inside but paying your debt and being tortured are two different things.”

“Some studies say that up to 21% of inmates in the US Prison system have experienced some level of sexual violence during their stays.” Munch added.

“This Beecher, I read his jacket, what the Nazi’s did to him, it went way past violence.” Fin said.

Munch shrugged. “He killed a kid.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not soft, brothers been getting sent up for less since the beginning. But Beecher clawed his way out, stayed clean. Turned his back on that devil and tried to make a life for himself even though he lost his wife, his oldest son, and his father in that hole.”

“And now he’s been thrown right back into hell.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit is always welcome!!!!! Comments make me do a happy dance of happiness!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: for mentions of rape/non-con, references to PTSD flashback experiences. Please Protect Yourself.

Tobias Beecher rubbed his face against his pillow and listened to the bustle of the hospital. The cool cotton rasped against his cheek. It was the one spot on his body that did not hurt. Memories floated to the surface.  Laughing voices, pain, his own begging sounding foreign even to himself.  Tobias shuddered. He had thought this was in the past, that he would never again have to know the horror of feeling cleaved in two while an animal grunted and panted obscenities in his ear. Sorrow burrowed into his chest and he moaned.

A man’s voice cut through the roar of memory. “Mr. Beecher.”  It opened a familiar wound, an ache that would never heal. “Mr. Beecher, my name is Detective Elliot Stabler.” The tenor and pitch were right but the tone was wrong. It was honest, comforting. There was life in this this tone, not death. Tobias opened his eyes, the words froze up in his throat, and put his head back on the pillow. He flinched as the muscles in his lower back protested with the movement.

Dusk was muted in overcast tones of light, billowing swags of clouds rolling across the horizon as night started her slow creep into the sky. Toby imagined he could smell the rain and feel the sharp slap of autumn riding behind the most recent snap of warmth that had settled on New York City. Cold was not so far behind as anyone would like to think now that November was riding on October’s coattails with her bitter breath. Toby turned inward, as the separation begin to settle, as the man he has become peeled away the smell of earth and the burnt penny taste of cooper in the back of his throat. He weaves the feel of viscous hands tearing at his hair and the deep bite of a blade on his pectoral muscle into a tight knot to be boxed and tucked away, along with the silver chime of Gary’s laughter and the tickle of Chris’ breath against the back of his neck.  A forgotten trinket meant to gather dust in a far corner where it cannot unravel and slice with it’s razor-wire edge.

 Toby knows it has to happen, he has to put the past 24 hours away. He needs to lock down the naked, savage truth before it takes away the meager pittance of life he has left. He had submerged his memories in alcohol, heroin, and rage while in Oz. Infused and distorted the truth until it was no longer recognizable.  Outside it was different. He would have to tamp it down fast. Tobias looked into the all-too-familiar azure blue eyes of the man as he spoke again.

 “Mr. Beecher, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” The detective shifted forward in his seat. Toby looked at the ceiling wishing the Nazi’s who attacked him had finished the job once and for all. 

 “You’ve seen his picture, huh? It’s uncanny at first, not so much after you open your mouth. I bet you gave Sister Pete a heart attack.” He watched Elliot squirm. “I know who you are, don’t worry, I’m not going tits up again.”  Toby and Stabler stared at each other, to Stabler’s credit he did not flinch. Stabler was broader than Christopher Keller. No scar on his forehead.  The resemblance was there, but Toby did not think it would hold up under scrutiny. This man had the intensity but not the cruelty. Years in Oz had made Toby an expert at reading people and he read trust in Elliot Stabler. 

“Mr. Beecher…” Toby held up a hand.

 “Call me Toby.”  

 “Toby. Do you know why those men targeted you?”

“They made it pretty clear didn’t they?” Toby pointed to his chest.

Elliot frowned. Toby’s casual disregard was startling. “Prag?”

“Is your prison lingo a little rusty, Detective Stabler?”

“You were someone’s property.”

“Bingo. By now I know you’ve read my jacket. The Brotherhood and I have a long history. Based on their zeal” Toby flinched. “I’m guessing someone is trying to fill Vern’s shoes. Wouldn’t be the first time one of those fucks took a run at me, probably won’t be the last.”

 Elliot nodded. “Toby, you may still be in danger.  We’d like to put you in protective custody until we are able to apprehend the men who hurt you.”

“Protective custody?  You mean Ad Seg?” Toby snorted. “Thanks, but I’ve done my time Detective.” Toby pursed his lips and shrugged, hissing as when his shoulders pulled at the tender muscles in his back. “When can I go home?”

"You wouldn't be asking that if you could see yourself, my guess is you're camping out here for the foreseeable future. I would like to talk about what happens next for you.”

“Next?”  Toby struggled to sit up. “Next what? You mean after this?” He pointed to his leg. “This is nothing. I still got three working limbs and my ass will heal. After this, I go back to my apartment and get on with my shitty life. What else am I supposed to do?”

“What if they come back?”

“What if they do?”

“Work with us, help us catch the men who did this to you.” Beecher’s leveled him with a frigid stare that saw past all of the assurances that Elliot could ever hope to offer. Elliot had been on the receiving end of the disbelieving looks from other rape victims before. Beecher looked colder, like he knew that no matter what Stabler offered it would not be enough to keep him safe. There would be no way to convince him that Elliot’s promises were not empty. No victim had ever looked at him the way Tobias Beecher was looking at him now. Elliot rubbed his eyes with his palms and sighed.

Toby watched the detective with a tug of regret that he could not offer this man anything other than the bitter, bald truth. The man’s broad shoulders were slumped with the weight of a brutal job. Dark circles under his eyes told of too many nights with too little sleep. Toby’s stomach clenched as his eyes swept over this man who carried a phantom of his lover’s face. Even though the resemblance was fading he could imagine the strength of muscle and the scritch-scratch of stubble against his cheek.  He longed to feel the brush of that aquiline nose against his ear.  But this was a good man, a man who spent his life protecting people from men like Chris. Men like him. What would a man like this ever want with Toby?

“Detective Stabler, I appreciate your dedication, but I’m sure there are probably victims out there that don’t make your skin crawl. I’m a lost cause. I just want to go home.”

Elliot’s stomach dropped and he cringed. Toby was so empty. The way Toby dismissed his own pain burned in his chest.  His arms itched to wind around Toby’s shoulders and offer some comfort, provide a protective rampart of blood and bone.  The feeling brought Elliot up short. He always felt the need to comfort the victims, to protect them. It was who Elliot was, what made him good at the job and this man was lying in a bed, alone, left with nothing.  He had been brutalized by a pack of jackals who had left a calling card etched into his flesh.  

Years ago, when he started out, Elliot knew he would have thought that it was just deserts for the death of a child. He would have believed that Toby had bought all the pain that followed when he climbed behind the wheel with drunken, careless disregard.  Life had scraped and clawed at Elliot until the distinctive blacks and whites in which he saw the world had faded into a shaded and confusing palette of grays. Elliot had now seen enough of life to know that payment was not always meted out with compensatory fairness. The price leveled on this man was too high.  Bile scalded the back of Elliot’s throat.

“Toby, listen to me, I know what you’ve done.” Toby huffed. “I’ve been on the job for a long damn time, I can read between the lines.”

“I’ve done horrible things.”

 “You have. I’m not going to tell you that you didn’t deserve going to prison. What happened to you in Oz.” Elliot paused and considered his next words.  “You didn’t deserve that and you didn’t deserve this. You don’t care about yourself. Okay. There are options but after what you’ve lived through? If it works for you, knock yourself out. Truth?”

“Sure.”

 “Keeping you under wraps helps us out.  You’re right. It looks like someone is stepping up to take Schillinger’s place and since you were the one put a shank in Schillinger’s chest, good odds claiming you puts them at the top of the garbage heap. My bet is these animals are going to come back until they’ve wrung you out, then they’ll kill you. The harder you are to find, the more ripples they make to find you, the more there’s a chance we catch them and put them away.”

“So, ‘if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for justice’? You got some balls for a hack.”

Elliot paced the room once and then walked to Toby’s bedside. “What those animals did to you inside? What those scumbags let happen to you?” He gripped the bed rail until his knuckles went white with the pressure. “That. Is. Not. Me.” Elliot was struck with a bloom of anger and a rush of unbidden images. Men and women in uniform watching as someone burned a swastika into this man’s body. A box cutter marring flesh while callous hands raised bruises on Toby’s skin.

Toby locked eyes with Elliot, held his gaze in silence as their breathing synchronized. Toby felt a flare of heat in his gut as he watched the detective’s pupils dilate and his cheeks flush. Stabler was the first to blink.  It had been years since Toby felt this rush of heat. It did not surprise him that a man who wore such a similar face resurrected this feeling, it scared the hell out of him. 

“Okay.” Toby said.

“Okay?

“Yeah. Okay, Detective. I’ll do it. On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“You.  You are the one I deal with, not some hack I don’t know. I work with you.”

Elliot nodded. “That was the plan.”

Toby smiled. “Good. Now, I need to get some sleep.”

Elliot flipped the off the overhead light and settled back into his chair. “Knock yourself out friend, you’re stuck with me now.”

“Oh Detective Stabler,” Toby teased. “are you going to keep the bad dreams away?”

“Don’t push it.” Elliot watched as Toby settled into his pillow and started to drift off. As Toby’s breathing evened and deepened Elliot recalled the past few minutes and the strange flash of sensation when they had been eye to eye. He had needed Toby to know that he was not like the other people who had let him down, allowed him to be abused but there had been something else and it had rolled through him like a thunderclap.  The conversation, as light as the tone had stayed on top, took a great deal of Toby’s energy. The bravado that Elliot had witnessed was a front that belied a bottomless chasm of loneliness and created an uncomfortable tightness in Elliot’s chest. Toby’s words echoed, _are you going to keep the bad dreams away._

“I’m going to try.” Elliot whispered and pulled out his phone to text Olivia an update.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit is welcome and makes me ridiculously happy. It also makes for good karma! Not beta'd, but no need to be gentle, I'm a big girl I can take it.
> 
> TRIGER WARNINGS: References to past child abuse, PTSD type trigger images.

_The path into hell never changed. Elliot stood in an empty playground. He scuffed the cracked blacktop with the toe of his sneaker, a battered cherry red Nike with with a small tear near the white swoosh. He reached down and worried at the frayed fabric. It had gotten caught on a piece of broken fencing when he and Mikey had snuck out to that empty lot to smoke the cigarettes they had lifted off Mikey’s pop. Elliot straightened, frowning toward the cloudless sky. The smell of decaying leaves filled his nose and his skin prickled as the warmth from the sun disappeared.  His vision darkened and he was left in a thick, cloying blackness.  He knew what came next because this was how it always happened. First, soft lips, a gentle pressure against his cheek, his mouth, conveying a tenderness that made his heart stutter. Then the hiss of leather and a stinging fire blooming across the backs of his thighs. He was blind, lost, held immobile while his body was set alight and purified. A torn voice taunted him, dared him to cry out and he tried to bottle the scream that clawed at his throat but he was weak. He was always too weak to hold on to his own, tortured voice._

Elliot’s chest heaved and he swung his legs over the side of the double bed to rub his bare feet against the rough nap of the hotel carpet. The light in the room was dimmed. He looked across the space between beds. Beecher was sitting up, scrubbing at his face with both hands.

“You okay?”

“Uh, yeah.” Elliot was thrown by the normalcy, like he and Beecher had shared space for years when they had settled down this evening for the first night of what promised to be a long stretch. The Nazis had gone to ground. Every skel with an iron cross or an SS tattoo had been rounded up, but no one was talking and there was precious little to go on at this point. Toby had not seen much during his attack and remembered even less.  Elliot thought that was a blessing based on the injuries Toby had sustained. There had been evidence of multiple assailants and Toby had said he was sure there were at least three men. He had told Olivia that he was opening his door when someone blitzed him from behind. After that he had vague recollections of the different shades of torture he had endured but no faces, no names, no distinguishing marks. The case had slowed to a crawl. The other victims had agreed to protective details but Novak and Cragen had insisted on protective custody for Beecher.

“Need some water?” Toby asked.

“Go back to sleep.”

A few moments of silence followed then Toby spoke into the quiet. “Night can be the worst. If you want to talk...”

Toby let the end of the sentence hang in the space between the beds, then plumped his pillow and pulled the covers up over his shoulder. Elliot’s belly flooded with shame. He was supposed to be protecting Toby, keeping him safe from the monsters that had terrorized him and here he was, night one, acting like a pussy 10 year-old scared of the bogey man.  Elliot lay back down and stared at the ceiling searching the cracks and water stains for answers like they were tea leaves or animal bones. He found nothing, just the sticky film of fear that always accompanied the old nightmare. It came to him often enough that slipping into it had felt like sliding into a familiar routine. He had tried to explain the dream to Kathy once, after he had come back from Kuwait. She had listened, stroking his shoulders with her delicate hands. Kathy had suggested a shrink at the VA and had enough information about how to find one that he knew she was concerned and had been making the calls behind his back. When he finally calmed she pulled him between her thighs and wrapped her soft body around his hardness until he shivered and thrust his fear away. It had felt like running, like a lie even then, as if they were missing something in each other that time turned a brighter and brighter spotlight on as the years passed. Now she was gone and the dream remained the same. Elliot looked across the beds and watched Toby’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep and even rhythm.

Elliot did not know if sleep was possible, but he had to try. Protective custody duty was a lot like being a new parent.  Sleep when they sleep, eat when they eat. Together 100% of the time, no breaks. Of course there was also a protective detail on the outside to watch their backs. A uniform at the door to small second floor apartment and an unmarked car with a couple of plain clothes humps a few doors down watching the entrance. It was a department safe house special.  An anonymous apartment in Queens. A residential neighborhood packed with up-down duplexes and apartment buildings.  The front door opened onto a sitting room with a few chairs, a couch, and a dining set. The furniture was all made in the same pressboard maple wood and accented with a beige fabric that was swirled with large rose and olive flowers. The set looked like it had picked from an office supply catalogue circa 1982. There was a galley kitchen along the left wall. The space was delineated by furniture, the couch facing away from the eating area to create a sense of separateness. An arch at the far end of the front room opened onto a short hallway stretching in either direction, to the right was a small bathroom and to the left was the sleeping area with two double beds and a night stand and lamp in between. The bed linens matched the living room upholstery and the sheets were a scratchy low-rent hotel thread count that made Elliot’s skin itch.

Tomorrow Olivia would drop by to go over Toby’s statement to see if there was anything that they were missing. Elliot would have to be content with that for the time being. The dream would remain the same. It would come and go at will, like the rage and sorrow that flowed through Elliot like a polluted river, its poison seeping into his skin.

Outside the gunmetal light of false dawn created phantoms and shadows on the ground. The two plainclothes police detailed to watch the building fell into the comfortable banter of an early morning stake out, each detailing, with great specificity, their plans for a shower and sleep when they were relieved at 7 AM.  Stephenson and Morales were on loan to the 16th for the remainder of this investigation. They came from Major Crimes, both men specializing in the anti-gang task force that dealt with home grown terrorists like the Aryan Brotherhood. 

A gypsy cab pulled up to the front door of the building.

“What have we got?” Stephenson muttered, pulling at his binoculars. He was tall and slender, with a wiry runner’s body and a hawk nose. His wide set eyes were the color of roasted coffee and he pushed his auburn hair away from his eyes as he leaned forward to get a better look.

“Probably somebody coming home from the clubs. You know, not everyone is a lonely old homebody fuck. Some of us have lives.” Morales chided. He was a fireplug of a man with thick black waves of hair pulled into a non-regulation pony tail.  He chucked Stephenson on the shoulder and chuckled as he pulled up his radio to alert the uniform on the inside. “Adamson, this is Morales, we got a cab pulling up to the front. Over.”

The uniform inside radioed an acknowledgement back. Stephenson continued to watch. The driver got out of the cab and walked around to the back passenger side door, opened it and pulled out medium sized cake box.

“Little early for a delivery, huh?” Stephenson nodded toward the cabbie.

“Might not be for our guy.”

Stephenson rolled his eyes. “When I have ever been that fucking lucky?”

“Shit.” Morales grumbled and got on the radio. “You may have someone coming your way. A cabbie, white guy, 5’10” wearing black pants and a dark zip up hoodie.  He’s carrying a small box. We’re on our way up.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why hello there everyone! As always, Con-Crit is welcome if you feel so inclined. The comments you leave here, will echo in eternity. Yes. I stole that line. HAH!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape and suicide. Please protect yourself.

Morales and Stephenson hit the ground at a sprint and made their way into the building. They crashed into the stairwell and heard Adamson yelling at someone to get down. They burst into the hallway and found the cabbie face down on the carpet babbling a mile a minute about a guy downtown who had given him a Benjamin to deliver a box. Adamson knelt down and cuffed the cabbie, then pulled him to his feet. Stephenson shouted for Stabler to remain inside while Morales radioed for backup and a CSU team.

Elliot scrambled out of bed when he heard Adamson and Stephenson shouting. He grabbed his service weapon and ordered Toby into the bathroom. Elliot shut and locked the door as he ordered Toby to crouch in the bathtub.

“Elliot, what is going on?” Toby whispered and Elliot held up a hand for Toby to be silent. His broken leg stuck out. The cast slipped on the bottom of the tub making staying low difficult. Toby gave up and let his ass plunk down gasping at the spike of pain.

Night turned her face toward dawn and pale morning light filtered through the bathroom’s high, small window as seconds turned to minutes, and time continued to march forward. Toby experienced a piercing shock when the yelling had started but now, leg and ass aching, the fear was being replaced by simmering anger and curiosity.  Toby turned his attention to Elliot, leaning against the sink, gun drawn.  He held the gun straight down, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he strained to listen to the sounds coming from the hallway. Elliot was living, breathing contradiction, coiled strength with flashes of vulnerability as he stood at alert in his bare feet, a pair of baggy light gray sweat pants, and a navy wife-beater. Toby took the opportunity to get a closer look at the cubist Christ on Elliot’s shoulder. The tattoo caused his fingers to tingle with the specter of Chris’s skin. He wanted to ask about it, find out if it came from Vegas like the one Chris had worn.  

Toby felt his careful detachment shifting, causing his studied commitment to keep everyone at arms length begin to fold. He had walked out of Oz a little over a year ago swearing to shed the horror of those nine years but he could still feel the concussive chunk of lights out in his bones. Even before the attack three days ago he woke each night bathed in sweat, shaking and nauseous.  He had been a fool to think that he had control over this beast in his memory.

“How are you holding up?” Elliot’s soft voice shook Toby out of his labyrinthine thoughts.

“This is…”

Toby was cut off by a voice coming from the hallway. “El, it’s Liv, you guys are clear.”

Elliot’s shoulders slumped and he unlocked the door.  Olivia looked like she had rolled out of bed into a pair of sweats. Her skin was pale, clean, with no make up and her hair was loose and tangled.

“Why good morning boys, fancy meeting you here.”

“Your partner, she’s a laugh a minute, huh?” Toby quipped as he struggled to rise and fell. Elliot clicked the safety on his weapon and handed it to Olivia.

Olivia quirked an eyebrow.  “Help rub-a-dub-dub up and I’ll meet you in the living room. Cragen’s on his way over with Munch and Fin.”

“Circling the wagon’s, huh.” Elliot said.

“Something like that.” She walked away. Elliot heard her banging the kitchen cabinets.  “Is there any coffee in this dump?”

“Here,” Elliot bent over Toby and curled Toby’s arm around his neck. “On three, okay?”

Toby leaned into the lift and was surrounded by the warm spiced scent of cardamom and cedar with a distinct and masculine undercurrent of fresh sweat. The sensation combined with feeling the solid muscular strength wrapped around his neck sent Toby’s mind reeling. Elliot appeared oblivious as he lifted Toby from the tub and helped to straighten him, leaving his arm draped around Toby’s shoulder and placing his other hand on Toby’s abdomen.

“You got this?” Elliot asked. His lifted his gaze and realized that he and Toby were so close he could feel Toby’s breath against his lips. They stayed locked in that moment. Elliot’s head swirled, the first swell of attraction curled in his abdomen and he felt the sweet pull of blood rushing to his loins. Something deep in his mind strained forward and he could almost hear the snap of a leather belt and feel the sting of it cracking against his skin. He pulled his hand away from Toby’s abdomen as if it had been burned and walked away with quick, certain steps toward the living room.

Toby stood in the bathroom, frozen. There was no mistaking the look in Elliot’s eyes. It was a welcome shock, like the first blessed breath of spring after a long, miserable winter. How long had it been since someone had seen Toby as a person, as a man? Chris? One moment when Chris had held Toby’s face in his hands begging for forgiveness. That second before the fall when Toby had turned Chris away, begging him for what? To be left alone? To live? Toby had realized what it was to be truly alone in the seconds before Chris’ body hit the floor of Em City.  That was when he entered his self-imposed exile because the body count was too high. Toby had begged Angus to take his mother and the children away when he realized the truth, after Chris, after the Brotherhood and the evacuation to Riker’s. He did not specify where, told Angus he did not want to know and that he would arranged contact through the old firm, that the next word the family would hear would come when Toby was dead. The look on his brother’s face had been one of grief mixed with relief.

The barren years followed, time ticking forward in a relentless rhythm. Toby embraced the emptiness like a lover. He cultivated wrapping himself in the quiet that came after the phone calls and visits stopped and one day flowed into the next. He waded his way through life as an observer and all that practiced separation flew away when Elliot’s warm hand stretched across his abdomen and he looked into a pair of eyes similar to and so very different from the ones that had changed his life.

“Toby?” Elliot appeared in the hallway again. Toby shook his head to clear his thoughts. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry.” Toby said.

“Good…Good.” Elliot looked down at his feet “There’s something we need you to look at, do you feel up to it or…”

“Stabler,” A light skinned African American man swaggered up behind Elliot, tilting his head in greeting at Toby. “Is this Beecher?”

“That’s me.”

“Fin Tutuola.” The man edged past Stabler and held out his hand. He was dressed in a simple grey t-shirt and a black jacket. Unassuming and a lie. This man wore his confidence in the steadiness of his hand and the thousands of experiences that lined his face and lit his eyes.  “You got some hard folks looking for you.”

Toby raised an eyebrow and shook the man’s hand. “What can I say, I’m a popular guy.” He tried to catch Elliot’s eye. “Elliot? What’s going on?”

“It’s better if you just come into the living room and see for yourself.”

Toby felt a shiver of fear trill up his spine. He limped into the living room, Stabler and Tutuola trailing behind him. Olivia was talking to an older bald man with a hang-dog long face and tired eyes. His camel suit coat was rumpled and he looked like he and sleep were not on speaking terms.

“Toby, this is Captain Cragen.” The older man stepped forward and held out a hand. “and Detective Munch.” A withered string bean of a man stepped forward. His face was cragged, wrinkled like a map that had been folded and refolded hundreds of time and his suit was impeccable, black on black single breasted and cut with care to highlight the long, lean line of his slender build. Toby took their hands in turn, the fear mounting.

Toby noticed a small brown cardboard box sitting on the edge of the low coffee table. The box was smudged with what Toby supposed was finger print powder.  He had not seen the box when it had been sent to Oz. The one that came after Gary. He felt the room tilt sideways. Elliot was right there guiding Toby to the couch.

The room erupted into action. Olivia was on Toby’s other side, her voice gentle with soothing words. Toby’s attention narrowed to the box and he reached out with a trembling hand and picked it up off the table. He held it on his lap and stared. There was only one way to know whether Holly’s or Harry’s hand was inside, only one way to know that the past four years of isolation had kept them safe.

He opened the box.

Inside was a folded piece of paper coated with the same fingerprint powder. His hands trembled as he picked up the paper and unfolded it. He read the four words printed in black steady handed block letters.

_You’re mine now Sweet Pea._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo-Ho, Angst Ahead! Just a warning...this gets pretty darkish...but you know, it's always the worst right before the sun comes out, or so they tell me. 
> 
> I have shamelessly used a tiny bit of dialogue from Oz. Sorry Mr. Fontana...Mea Culpa...I know they aren't my characters but I do like to take them out and play with them! Can you blame a girl?
> 
> Choice of a pony or a sonic screwdriver for those who leave comments or kudos. I'm not above bribery. And thanks to those who are sticking with this story even though we are almost a decade away from these characters. If you don't know what a sonic screw driver google Doctor Sonic Screwdriver and be warned, you will never be the same again.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to drug use, rape, self-harming behavior, and Vern Schillinger being a sadist. 
> 
> SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen Season 3 through 6 of Oz then there are some spoilers too, so be warned.

Elliot had watched Toby when he picked up the box. He saw the tremor in Toby’s hand. Toby. Elliot tried to figure out when _Beecher_ had become _Toby_.  When did Toby cease to be a man who killed a child, an ex-con, to become man who had made a horrific mistake and paid by forfeiting the remaining peace he may have experienced in his life just to survive?  The swelling in Toby’s eye had decreased leaving a florid bruise. Toby’s dirty blond hair had been shorn to accommodate the 25 staples stretching from the base of his skull up and over his right ear. The cast on his left leg extended to his mid-thigh. Elliot cringed when he thought of the injuries that no one could see and the old wounds that had been torn open. 

 _That’s what you are. Livestock…because now Tobias, your ass belongs to me._ A strange pressure born of rage and panic began to swirl in Toby’s chest. The treacherous simplicity and reasonableness in that voice chilled him like Vern’s surety of place and stature were common knowledge. Toby could hear Vern Schillinger as if a decade of brutality had not happened and he was once again stuck in a Plexiglas box beneath a chucking sadist. Vern had discussed Toby’s impending sexual slavery with casual pleasure, like he was talking about a fishing trip he had planned to take.  It was not over. It was never going to be over. No matter how many years had passed from that first night, he was always going to belong to the Vern’s of the world. Isolation made no difference. Practiced indifference did not matter.  After all the insanity, the plotting, the manipulation, and finally the acceptance, he was still a prag. A receptacle for the hate and bile that poured out of those Nazi fucks.

The pressure in Toby’s chest exploded.

Elliot held his breath when Toby lifted the paper from the box. He could feel his heart pound in his chest, once, twice, three times and then Toby was on his feet, roaring howl that sounded like it was ripped from his soul stunned Olivia, Cragen, and Munch. Toby flipped the coffee table and started toward the bedroom, overcompensated for the cast, and went down on his side. He rocked, keening and covering his head with his hands. Elliot and Tutuola looked at each other, shocked.

“Help me get him up.” Elliot shouted to Tutuola.

They knelt beside Toby and he curled in on himself. The sounds coming from him were raw grief. Elliot motioned for Tutuola to stay with Toby and pulled Cragen aside.

“What don’t I know.” It was clear Elliot was not asking a question.

“Elliot.”

“No…” Toby’s keening had devolved into heaving sobs. “What the fuck is going on here?” Elliot hissed.

Cragen stuffed his hands in his pockets and glared at the floor as if it knew and refused to provide the answer to Toby’s strange behavior. “It’s complicated.” Elliot snorted in disdain. “He had an older son who was kidnapped while he was inside. They sent him the child’s hand in a box.”

“Proof of life?” Olivia joined the conversation.

Cragen shook his head. “Huang reviewed the file. I called him on the way over, he said Beecher could probably handle it. He said Beecher never saw the box that got sent to Oz.”

“As if that matters?” Munch threw in to the mix. “What we imagine is always worse.”

“And now we’ve done what, asked him to relive one of the most horrific moments of his life while he’s recovery from a gang rape?” Elliot was incredulous.

Olivia’s eyes hit the ceiling. “He’s in recovery. If he flames out, uses again, it’s on us.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Elliot said and stepped away.

Elliot knelt beside Fin. Fin was talking about the weather. The way that the warmth of the Indian Summer was starting to fade and how he had noticed the first blush of autumn colors on the trees outside his brownstone when he woke up this morning. He was talking about the playoffs. He wondered who was going to take the American league all the way and that his dreams of a subway series were once again in ashes.  Elliot recognized the technique. He was soothing Toby with white noise. 

“Toby.” Elliot reached out and then pulled his hand back. Too many people had touched Toby without permission, he was not going to be one of them. “Let’s get you off the floor. Fin’s going to take you to lie down. Get some rest while I clear some stuff with Cragen.”

“I want to go home.”

“No, Toby. That’s not going to happen.”

Toby clenched his teeth and then stretched his jaw wide. “Being crazy was easier.”

Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose. There was so much he did not know about this person.  Things he needed to know to keep Toby safe. It was as if he had been dropped into the middle of a firefight. _The fog of war._ Elliot thought. _No way to know the right answer because there isn’t one._ “Maybe. It might seem that way right now.”

Toby shrugged. Fin resumed his patter about nothing and helped Toby toward the bedroom.

Elliot went back to Cragen. “He wants to go home.”

“Death wish.” Much said.

Elliot shook his head. “I think he just wants this over.’  

“Can’t blame him.” Olivia added.

“Captain, are we staying here?”

“It’s our safest bet. Now that they’ve surfaced once, we might be able to track them down. Worst case scenario they try for him and we put them out of business.”

“So we take a trauma victim and we make him bait.” Elliot stalked to the bedroom to check on Toby.

Fin was leaning in the doorway. “Man is tough.”

“I noticed. We’re staying.” Fin raised an eyebrow when he realized the “we” was Toby and Elliot, not Elliot and Olivia. “Cragen will work out the details but I’m here for the duration.”

Fin shook his head. “Be foolish of me to tell you that you’re in a little too deep on this one.”

“It would.”

“Then I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Fin walked away, Elliot took a deep breath and stepped into the darkened room, shutting the door.  He knew that the others would understand. He was going to pick up the pieces, their job was to keep them safe until he emerged with Toby put back together in some state resembling functional. He steeled himself, this was Olivia’s domain. She was the empathetic one, the one who knew what to say and how to say it. Elliot could body slam perps and beat up his locker but he could not find the words to tell his children that he loved them, his ex-wife that he understood why she had left, or where the rage came from because he was only beginning to get an inkling of that himself.  What he knew of loss was nothing compared to what Toby had survived. Elliot sat on his bed facing Toby, the other man’s slender body huddled under a sheet. Toby looked up and sat, facing Elliot, their knees almost touching.

“I take it this wasn’t all in my file, huh?”

“Not all of it.” Elliot shook his head and waited.

“Gary…” Toby began and then stopped. “My oldest boy. He was kidnapped with my daughter while I was in Oz. It was retribution. Vern Schillinger. I killed his son.” Elliot started to stand and Toby waved him down.  “Stand down Detective. I was a lawyer, remember? I engineered a situation. When his son got sentenced and sent to Oz I got the boy to trust me, helped him get clean, and see his father for who he was.  When he did Vern had him killed. Sort of. It’s complicated.” Toby huffed a bitter laugh.

“Why do I get the feeling that nothing with you is simple.”

“Because you are wise.” Toby heaved a sigh. “I wanted to atone. My lover said I was being stupid. Chris Keller. The one you look like. Are you sure you don’t have a long lost brother out there?”

“I’ve seen his picture. Made me want to ask my mother, but I figured any secrets are best left buried.”

“You are far wiser than I am, Stabler.”

“Elliot.”

“Elliot...” Toby clasped his hands together and Elliot watched the knuckles blanche. “I asked my father to help Vern reconnect with his other son.  I had made the offer to Vern once and he didn’t take me up on it the first time so I did it in secret.”

“What did he do when you offered?”

“He shanked me.” Elliot noticed that the indifference that he had perceived that first night they spoke was gone and Toby’s words sounded like they were rendered from the tatters of what was left of Toby’s broken heart. “A…friend convinced me to go ahead. When Vern found out that I was behind his reunion, he paid his son to kidnap my two oldest children.” Toby’s voice cracked. “My son…” Elliot was still as he watched Toby’s tears fall unchecked and felt his own eyes burning. “My baby was murdered and mutilated. They sent me his hand out of spite.”

“And your daughter?”

“Fourteen days after they were taken, 10 days after Gary’s…” Toby sucked in a deep breath. “Ten days after Gary’s body was found, Holly was returned.” 

Silence eddied between the two men like dust motes caught in a sunbeam. Elliot’s cheeks were streaked with his own tears. The anguish he felt for both Toby and for himself strong enough to drown out his own father’s drunken tirades and deaden the memories of the old man’s beatings. He could not imagine the horror that Toby had faced. He tried to, he thought of Dickie and Lizzie being taken, imagined, with all he knew of the atrocities that can be visited on a human body what Toby must have been thinking in the days his children where gone.

“The worst part of it is,” Toby continued pulling Elliot out of his own thoughts. “That it all started with Vern because I stood up to him. This pointless feud started because he wanted me dead and instead of dying like the good little prag, I got shit-faced rocked on bad angel dust and just about blinded him. I kept fighting back, kept baiting him, because it was never going to be enough. Nothing was ever going to make up for what he took from me that first night in his pod.” Toby struck his bandaged chest with his hand hard enough that Elliot winced when he heard the hollow crack. “I wanted to be more than this, more than a fucking prag, and somewhere I have the feeling Vern is laughing his Nazi-cunt head off right now, because 10 years and buckets of blood later, it’s still what I am. My son, my father, and my lover are dead. What’s left of my family is gone and I will never see them again. Everything that I needed to do to survive and to keep the people I love alive has left me with nothing. I am nothing.” He beat his chest in time the steady rhythm as he chanted _I am nothing_ in a hissing whisper, as if it were a prayer.

Elliot leaned in and clutched at Toby’s fist.  He searched for words to fill space between them. He clasped Toby’s hand in his own and thought that they might as well be lost in a gale, clinging to each other keep from being swept away into the void where the scouring wind swallows all other sounds.

“No.” was the only word he could find. He shifted to Toby’s bed and sat beside him, knowing that Fin was right, he was in too deep. He had not just let this man in, he cared about him in a way that brought back the old nightmare and the sound of his father’s slurring hatred.

Elliot wound his arms around Toby’s shoulders and pulled the shaking man into his chest. “No.” Elliot said again, as he held Toby against his body, providing a lee from the storm that was coming and making a silent promise to not let go.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Super short chapter. Thanks for taking time to read this weirdo love story that popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone. These boys...sheesh...Comments, kudos, and con-crit are always welcome, no need to be gentle, my sensitive pants are in the wash. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape and torture.

Toby woke with a start.  The room was dark, black out curtains drawn across the windows.  Butter warm light poured out from the crack beneath the bedroom door. He remembered clinging to Elliot to keep from drowning in the hollowed out chasm of regret and despair in the center of his chest. Elliot had budged up to the head of the bed, taking Toby with him, keeping Toby safe in the circle of his arms. Toby had followed, breaking with every breath until sleep had overtaken sadness, and he dropped into the unknowing gentled by the thump-dump of Elliot’s heartbeat.

Voices drifted through the door, an argument if the strained tone of Elliot’s voice was anything to go by. Toby got to his feet, a burning in his belly. He did not want to be the source of frustration for people who had done nothing but try to help him despite the filth that trailed him wherever he went. He wanted to wrest control of his life back from the madness that roiled under the surface of his skin. Its constant companionship was an exhausting reminder of everything he had lost, it stuck to him like an oiled residue that he never could wash away.

“Enough.” He said to himself and if felt real, like he meant it for the first time in 10 years. His hand hovered over the doorknob when Olivia’s voice spiked, razor sharp with frustration.

“Elliot, I’m your _partner.”_

“And?”

“And I want to know what’s going on with you. I know that things have been hard, but you’re all wrapped up here. What was it I just walked into?”

Toby heard the springs on the couch groan and Elliot sighed. “What does Cragen want?”

Toby smirked. _Subtle Elliot._ He thought. _Change the subject._ He used to do that with Gen whenever she asked about his drinking, from what he had seen of Olivia, he could have told Elliot it was a useless tactic.

“You can’t avoid this forever, El. You are over the line and I don't understand how you got there."

“I know, Liv. I…” Toby held his breath, he felt like a child eves dropping on his parents hoping to hear one of them curse or let loose a dirty family secret. “Please, just give me some time.” The brittle misery in Elliot’s voice was undisguised.

“You got all the time you need, but Elliot, watch yourself.  Don’t get into something you can’t turn around.” Toby heard Olivia’s footsteps pacing and then stop.

“Alright.” Resignation.  “Can we work now?”

“Novak knows what happened this morning. She wants us to move him. She’s right. Staying here is dangerous.”

“Have they figured out where yet?”

“No. We still haven’t figured out how those dirt bags knew he was here.” There was a pause, she was weighing her words. “Elliot, you’ve been on this 3-days straight, take a break, go see your kids. I’ll take the next 24, handle the move.”

Toby frowned with his hand on the doorknob. He had spent nine years with others telling him when he could eat, sleep, and piss. He was done being a passive observer of his own existence. It was not enough anymore.  He was tired of the wretched mourning creature that slept in his heart.  He walked into the living room and Elliot and Olivia looked at him like they were two teenagers caught smoking behind the garage. It made him laugh, an honest sound that felt foreign rushing through his lungs and rolling through his muscles.

“Why don’t I just go home.” He held his hand up to silence both of their objections. “I’m not saying _alone._ I’m crazy, not stupid.”

“Toby, I told you, that’s not happening.”  The sharpness in Elliot’s tone turned Olivia’s head. She had heard that same quality in Elliot’s voice before, when he was arguing with Kathy. Olivia tucked that thought away to look at when she had some distance from Elliot's oppressive glower, which was out in full force, evidenced by the furrow in Elliot's brow and the hunch of his shoulders.

“Quickest way to get this over is to give them what they want.” Toby said.

Olivia saw Elliot’s eyes widen. “No way. You’re not bait. The risk is too high…”

“You’re right, Toby,” Olivia interrupted. “but we need to be able to control as many variables as possible to keep you alive. If we keep you in protective custody, in one of our safe houses, then we cut down on the things we can’t control.”

“Then why don’t we just stay here.”

“We need to figure out how they found you. Can’t do that if you stay still.”

Toby shrugged. “Alright. I’ll roll it up.” He walked back to the bedroom.

“You can take man out of prison.” Olivia said. Elliot’s head snapped around and she started. "What?”

Elliot's voice was low, ashamed. “It's not a joke, what he went through in there. I can’t count the number of times I’ve threatened perps about what’s going to happen to them inside. You know? _Just wait ‘til they get a look of your pretty face.”_

“El, we’ve both done that, it’s part of the job.”

“It doesn’t make it right.”

Olivia bit her bottom lip. It was a tick, when she was not sure what to say next, what would work to bring some relief to a situation that seemed to be out of control. She settled for simple. “Do you want me to take the next 24?”

“No. It’s like I told Fin, I’m in this for the duration. Those Nazi bastards are not getting to him.”

“Okay, Elliot, just be careful. I’m going to step out, call Cragen and Novak, figure out the logistics. Be ready to move in an hour.”

Elliot nodded and Olivia walked out. He locked the door behind her and went to see how Toby was coming with his packing.

“Heard all that?” Elliot pulled his own duffle out from beneath the bed.

“You and your partner are not exactly soft spoken.”

Elliot chuffed a laugh. “So we’ve been told.”

“She’s worried about you.”

Elliot’s head dropped. “Yeah.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Worried?”

“No. I’m not a Nazi.” Elliot’s mouth twisted into a fierce smile, like a wolf baring its teeth. “They’re the ones that need to be worrying, not me, and not you. You’re going to be safe Toby.”

Toby felt his cheeks heat up. “When you say it like that, I actually want to believe you.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to everyone following this meandering story. Thank you so much for reading and for the comments and the kudos. Con-crit, comments, and kudos are much appreciated and I've heard tell that for every comment or kudos left, God saves a kitten. Think of the kittens people!
> 
> We are still navigating angst-ridden waters. I can't help it, I like a slow burn with a lot of woe thrown into the mix. I read Jane Eyre too many times in my formative years. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape, torture, and child abuse, but nothing graphic.

“Gin.” Toby slapped his cards down on the table and headed toward the refrigerator. “Need anything?”

“Nah, thanks though.” Elliot smiled and sipped at his coffee, relishing the warmth and the bitter flavor pouring over his tongue.  

Toby wandered into the kitchen area. “Does the police department buy these apartments in bulk? I swear that water stain is in the exact same place as the one we just left?” Toby said as he pointed to a swirling sepia blot on the ceiling above the kitchen sink.

Elliot laughed. It was surreal. The new safe house looked identical to the one they had left, same cheap, bargain basement furniture, same layout, one living room and kitchen with a bathroom and bedroom off the hall. This new apartment was a mirror image of the last, like going through the looking glass where left is right and up is down. Elliot pursed his lips and took another swig of his coffee, the feeling of being sideways and backwards fit his mood. He decided not to fight it and settled in for the ride.

The move had gone well. It was quick and uneventful, despite the drama with Olivia earlier in the day. Elliot had experienced a rush of fear when Olivia had cracked the bedroom door and seen him sitting with Toby in the dark.  He knew he was crossing a line when he had chosen to stay with Toby after he had fallen asleep in his arms.  That line, the one Olivia insisted on pointing to, was not just drawn in Toby’s experiences as rape victim or as an ex-con. Those should have been reason enough for Elliot to keep his distance. He had comforted victims before, that was nothing new, but in the past he had stepped away. The comfort had been part of the job, a part of Elliot’s fundamental nature. He was the sea wall that kept the incoming tide from overwhelming the land.  It was more than duty that kept him anchored in place after Toby’s breath had turned slow and even.  He had traveled deep into his own mind for the first time in years, to fight with his father’s ghost in an empty sandlot. That was when Olivia had stepped into the room. Elliot’s face burned with embarrassment, not just because he had his arms wrapped around another man but because he was caught unaware. The shame of getting lost in his own thoughts when he was supposed to be alert and guarding Toby from harm had flooded him with a sour, itching anger. Olivia had born the brunt of it with empathy and concern. It compounded his humiliation. 

Elliot had glowered and been gruff and Olivia had drawn him out with a few swift words to test the fences. Elliot was amazed that he and Olivia had found a way to cross the unspoken river of language that ran like a swift current through any relationship. It was what made them excellent partners and the reason why Kathy rankled about their pairing even though she knew that Elliot had never betrayed her trust. Kathy and Elliot, despite almost 20 years of marriage, had never found a way across those waters.

He loved Kathy, missed her companionship, and the history that they gave each other. They were children when they came together, 17-years-old and stupid about life in the wonderful, golden way that makes youth invulnerable to the future. The relationship that blossomed between them was over now, it had grown into something grounded in their children’s lives, not their own.  The familiar complexities of his relationships with Olivia and Kathy were a comfort in light of the  unexpected gravitation he felt toward Toby.

“Elliot?”

Elliot was rattled out of his musing. “Huh?”

“I asked if you wanted to play another hand or hit the rack?”

Elliot checked the time. They had gotten to the new safe house in the late evening and now the hour hand was closer to 11 than 10. Elliot was tired but still twitching with adrenaline from the switch to a new location.

“You should get some sleep. We were supposed to go over your statement today, but that went to hell. Olivia said she’d be by with Casey Novak in the morning about nine and then our consulting shrink, Dr. Huang wants to swing by in the afternoon to check on you.”

“Oh.” Toby folded the top of the Chinese take-out box he had been picking at and put it back in the refrigerator. “Lights out. I get it.”

Elliot felt a cold prickle on his neck. “Get what?”

“You’re working, it’s okay.” Toby started to limp toward the bedroom with a dismissive wave of his hand. Elliot saw the easy camaraderie of the past hour switch off in Toby’s eyes.

“Wait.” Elliot pointed to the chair that Toby had left. “That wasn’t an order. I wanted you to know you didn’t have to stay up to entertain me. I have a hard time winding down and this day has been…” Elliot floundered.

“Fucked up.”

“Yes. Fucked up.”  Elliot chuckled. Toby hobbled back and sat, a shy smile quirking the corner of his mouth.

“Thanks for earlier. That box. After everything. I wanted to be done with all this shit.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“No. No you can’t, but I appreciate you being willing to be there. It cost you something…with your partner.” Toby thought back on the argument that he had overheard.

“Don’t worry about that, she and I go around sometimes, but she’s got my back.”

“You’ve been partners for awhile?”

“Seven years.” Elliot remembered his first impression of Olivia. She was 1960s pinup girl beauty wrapped around a titanium core. He had no idea what to make of her, especially when she had become overwhelmed and attached to the victim during their first case together.  Over the years both of them had become embroiled in the lives of the people they helped and they kept each other in check. Elliot would never forget the choking fear of being too late, not enough as he raced through Central Park to try and stop a grieving father from committing suicide. He could still hear Olivia’s soft reproach _you let him in_ , she had sounded like she had earlier that day. He had not  known how to tell her that this was different. He was captivated by the man not his trauma. It was an unfamiliar feeling, this orphic craving to learn about Tobias Beecher.

“That’s a long time. I heard Detective Benson talking about your kids, it must be hard, being away from your family so much.” Toby noticed Elliot’s expression falter. “Shit, I’m sorry, that’s probably way to personal.”

“It’s alright. Kathy, my wife. My ex-wife. We split up about a year ago. It’s hard with the kids but we make it work.”

“How often do you get to see them?”

“Not enough.”  Elliot realized the impact of his words on a man who had one child in the grave and could not, for their own safety, see his other two. "I’m such an asshole.”

“Elliot, don’t worry about it, I made my peace. Well, peace is maybe a little strong.” Toby paused. “It’s necessary. I live with it as long as it keeps my family out of harms way.”

“That’s a hell of a sacrifice.” Elliot said.

“You would do the same thing for your family.”

Elliot nodded and the two men slipped into silence, the kitchen clock ticking like a metronome, marking the passing seconds. A wailing siren echoed down the empty streets and the hollow pock of rain tapping against the window joined the symphony of night sounds. Elliot and Toby regarded each other. Elliot could feel the pressure of unspoken questions hovering behind his lips. _Who are you? Why do I feel this way?_

“What I’ve done for them, my kids. It doesn’t make up for the past.”  Toby was solemn. “I’m not a good man, Elliot.”

“You keep finding ways to tell me that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Elliot scratched at his scalp. He opened his mouth and closed it. Opened it again and looked into Toby’s eyes. The blue reminded him of the cornflowers that had grown along his grandmother’s driveway. He missed the gritty-sweetness of the maple sugar candies that she would slip him from underneath her apron and the way she would cup his cheek with her withered hand and say _such a pretty smile, makes me wanna to slap your mama_. He had never understood what she meant and always regretted that he had never asked. He was possessed of that same curiosity now, to uncover the truth inside of this complicated man, maybe discover his own truth in the process.

“Maybe.” Elliot said. “Maybe not. Hard to tell what’s true when your ass deep in the suck.”

Toby’s face broke into a broad, toothsome smile. Elliot felt the weight that had been perched on his shoulders since Toby’s breakdown that morning lessen.

“Spoken like a true jar head.” Toby said.

They both laughed and Toby snapped up the cards on the coffee table, shuffling and dealing with ease. The two men played and talked into the dun hours of the night as the storm outside peaked, the wind whipping against the brick and glass canyons of Brooklyn. Olivia Benson checked her phone one last time, a tingling worry tugging at her thoughts, before snuggling into bed in her Upper West Side apartment.  Dr. George Huang closed the psychiatric file from Sister Peter Marie Reimondo and watched the low hanging clouds roll through the sky. He wondered at the resilience of one man in the face of so much suffering.  Casey Novak slipped on her coat, grimacing at the thought of trying to catch a cab and worrying about the sleep she knew would not come after wading through the savagery of Tobias Beecher’s medical reports.

Downtown, in the belly of the 16th precinct evidence room a phone rang and an address was whispered while two men in Brooklyn played another hand of Gin and an Assistant District Attorney cursed at a passing cab pulling her coat tight against the freezing rain.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE HEED THE TRIGGER WARNING!!!! (Yes, I am using all caps and superfluous exclamation points because I am adding extreme emphasis).
> 
> Thanks to everyone who continues to read and thank you for the comments and the kudos! Comments and kudos keep my muse from going off on a bender and leaving me bereft of words and stories. Keeping her happy is a full time job!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains what I would consider a graphic depiction of Toby's rape. Please protect yourself. I will post a summary of this chapter with the next chapter so that if you choose to protect yourself, you can skip this chapter altogether. The depiction of his assault is not meant, in any way, to sensationalize or eroticize rape. 
> 
> Rape/Trauma Resources In the US:  
> Joyful Heart Foundation - www.joyfulheartfoundation.org  
> Rape, Abuse and Incest National Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE, www.rainn.org  
> Planned Parenthood: 1-800-230-7526, www.plannedparenthood.org  
> National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224, www.thehotline.org

The skin on Toby’s knuckles tightened as he gripped the arm of the sofa. He took a breath, filling his lungs, and then exhaled, slow and deliberate. He tilted his head back and listened to Elliot’s footsteps as he wore a groove in the floor at the other end of the room. Casey Novak sat beside him, her yellow legal pad on her knees, scribbling notes in looping scrawl. Her copper hair hung in a loose fringe around her face highlighting skin the color of fresh cream.  Her wide mouth was turned down in a moue as she and Olivia reviewed Toby's statement with him looking for any additional details that might help with the investigation.

“Let’s go through your day again, Toby.”

Toby sat up and rubbed his palms on the long fleece basketball shorts he was forced to wear. It was a concession to the ankle to mid-thigh cast and it made him feel like a lazy 15-year-old. “I got up about 6, showered, ate breakfast at home, read for a while. Around 1 o’clock, I took a car to Oswald to meet with a prisoner. The trip took a little over an hour, I got there about 2:15.”

Elliot grumbled something under his breath and Toby shook his head and responded to the unvoiced sentiment.  “What I do out there is important. There weren’t a whole lot of people lining up to help me when I was getting ass fucked by a sadistic maniac, maybe if there had been...” He let the rest of the statement hang in the air unspoken.

“It’s not safe.” Elliot snarled.

Toby rolled his eyes.  “Neither is crossing the street.”

Elliot and Toby had talked through the night, playing hand after hand of Gin as they wandered through memories of their boyhood and the paths that had led them to that late night card game. Toby wept when he had told Elliot about Genevieve and their last awkward coupling in the bleach soaked sterility of the conjugal dorm room.  Elliot had surprised himself by talking about the grossness of his father’s temper when he was in the drink. Elliot had asked about how Toby spent his time now that he was free and it had warmed Toby to know he had something of worth to share. Toby had told Elliot about his work with Sister Pete. The one-on-one meetings with men who had been raped and degraded and the constant battle with the CO’s and administration to recognize the damage their lack of attention caused. Toby was torn between glowing a little at Elliot’s obvious concern and feeling insulted when Elliot had bristled at the idea of Toby returning to Oz. It had been the only tense part of their late night confessional. Toby’s stomach still fluttered when he thought of Elliot resting his hand at the junction of Toby’s neck and shoulder, the sure, steady pressure as he made Toby promise to be careful.

“It’s different and you know it.”

“Can we not do this right now?” Novak snapped. Elliot held his hands up in defeat and resumed pacing. “Okay, Toby, what did you do when you were at Oz?”

“Nothing really. I got there and went straight to Sister Pete’s office. We talked for about 20 minutes, then she brought in the young man she wanted me to meet. We were together  for another 45 minutes and he went back to his unit. Sister Pete and I finished up. She wants to start a re-entry group for guys who are looking to make good at parole hearings. I left at about 4pm.”

“The inmate you met with, what was his name?”

“Nope. I already told you, no names. Being a prag is hard enough, getting tagged as a snitch will get him air-holed. Besides, this kid was turned out by one of the homeboys. No way they are working with the Brotherhood.”

“Is there anyone out there you think we may be able to talk to, someone who may know something?” Olivia asked.

“Try Ryan O’Reilly, but bring something to barter with, that kid never let anything go for free.”  Toby chuckled. “Send Detective Benson, if Detective Stabler shows his face the whole facility will go into lockdown.”

“Olivia can you get Munch on that?" Casey said and motioned with her hand for Toby to keep talking. "What happened next?”

“I took the car home. We hit the city at about 5:30 with traffic. I had the driver drop me off a few blocks away, stopped got a coffee, and headed home. The last clear memory I have before waking up in the hospital is putting my key in the lock.”

“We think they kept you for at least 2 to 3 hours before they left you in the park. Do you remember anything from that time?" Olivia asked.

"A little more every day.” Toby’s heart started to pound and he felt his breathing hitch and stutter.  He remembered in bright flashes of sensation, the agony of burning skin and the scent of semen, blood, and something earthy and pungent. Elliot and Olivia both watched Toby descend into memory. “They laughed a lot. One of them stuck a gun in my mouth and said _try taking a bite out of this, Bitcher.”_  

“That’s good, Toby.” Olivia watched Elliot out of the corner of her eye, the flare of rage evident in the fierce cut of his gaze and the balled fists at his sides. “Do you know what kind of gun it was?”

“No.” Toby’s voice went flat. “I don’t know guns. If it was a shank, I might be able to help you out.” 

Casey flipped through her notes, her eyes darting across each page as if she were searching for a key to unlock this case's stalemate.

“What is it, Casey?” Olivia asked.

“Nothing, just, keep going, Toby. What else about the man with the gun?”

“Getting raped in prison is so much easier. No one asks questions.” Toby caught Olivia’s eye. “Sister Pete once told me that Warden Glynn said rape had a _leveling effect._ It kept everyone equal.” Olivia could not restrain her look of disgust. She had used the threat of rape in prison as intimidation with perps, and just like Elliot had said yesterday, it did not make it right. The shame of it stung.

Toby closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of the couch. “I was lying on cement covered in dirt and it was cold. The one in front had the gun, I don’t really remember much about him.”

“Focused on the gun?” Elliot said.

Toby nodded. “There was another guy, he Had his foot on my back, he kept grinding the heel of his boot against my shoulder, and…” A gorge of bile rose in Toby’s throat and he fought it back down. “the other was raping me. It hurt. That’s what I remember. It hurt and all I could smell was gun oil and cigarettes and shit. I kept hoping the bastard would pull trigger, that it would be over, but I knew that I’d never get that lucky.”

The nausea came on full force and Toby darted to stand as he clapped a hand over his mouth. Elliot was there in an instant with an arm around his waist, helping him to the bathroom as quick as Toby’s injured leg would allow.  

Olivia and Casey listened to Toby heaving and choking. Casey ran her hands through her hair. She picked up her pen and tapped it against her teeth.

“What’s bugging you Casey?”

“The part about the gun, I was reading through his file last night. What was it the gunman said to him?”

Olivia thought for a moment. “Something like _take a bite out of this?”_

Casey went back through her notes and then pulled another file folder from her brief case. The file was thick with photocopies and after a few minutes of paging through loose paper Casey pulled a sheet out, triumphant. 

“Ah hah! I thought that sounded familiar. While Beecher was in prison, he…” Casey’s face contorted with discomfort.

“I bit another’s man’s dick off.” Toby said. He was leaning against the entryway to the hall, his pale face covered with a thin sheen of sweat. “Well, I bit off the tip.” The manic smile on Toby’s face made Olivia squirm. “What? The Nazi fuck woke me up from a sound sleep and dragged me out of bed to suck him off. I figured a month in the hole was worth not letting that asshole come in my mouth, those jizz bags never pulled out.”

Elliot’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Did anyone actually _work_ in this prison?”

Toby patted Elliot’s shoulder. “You’re cute when you're incredulous.”

Elliot grunted and helped Toby back to the couch.

“What about that prisoner? Is he still alive?” Casey asked.

“James Robson.”

“I thought you said no names?” Toby caught the sarcasm in the ADA’s tone.

"You can have him.  He got transferred to the HIV/AIDs Unit right before the evacuation. He was still polluting the air with his idiocy when I left a year ago. Sister Pete hasn’t mentioned that he died, but I don’t know if she would tell me or not.” Elliot and Olivia looked stunned. Toby was surprised either of them would care. “I’m negative for everything and I started the post exposure meds just in case. Our considerate Aryans used condoms, said they were standing in to make sure I knew my place.”  Toby’s head jerked back after the last words spilled out of his mouth like the statement surprised him as well.

Casey grabbed her legal pad again and began another furious search.

Olivia was pleased. “That wasn’t in your original statement, the part about the condoms. That’s great, it means they are taking orders, which means they weren't smart enough to put this together on their own. We have that much more chance of catching them.”

“We need to look into this Robson.” Elliot said.

“I wouldn’t waste your time. He got raped by a black man and booted from the Brotherhood. He left sane a few exits back. I doubt he could organize a sock drawer, let alone multiple kidnappings.”

“What about the smell?  You said it smelled like shit.” Elliot said. “Human or animal?”

Toby stroked his jaw as he thought back to the acrid stench of the place where he had woken. He had come to with a jolt of pain shooting across the yolk of his shoulders as one of his attackers had stubbed what he figured was a cigarette out at the base of his neck. He had meant what he said, dealing with his rape in prison had been easier. No one ever asked him for details. It was not like they were going to stop it from happening. He had stood in front of the prison in a pathetic mockery of drag and all Sister Pete had done was give him a look of equal parts pity and disapproval when she saw him snorting heroin in the aftermath. He shoved Oz away and focused on the memory of his attack.  He could see the ground and feel the chafe of the dirt against his naked skin. Another detail scratched at the surface, something poking at his cheek when he tried to rest his head after they had become bored threatening him with the gun.

“Straw.” It had kept getting stuck on his lips when they ground his head into the dirt. “There was straw on the ground and it smelled like animal dung. Horses. It was old though, lingering but still strong.”

“Elliot, aren’t they renovating some stables near the north end of the park?” Olivia was tense with excitement.

Elliot’s eyes lit with the scent of a possible lead. “The City was, but budget cuts put a stop to the work about a month ago."

“I’ll call and get Fin on it, with any luck we may be able to get something from the scene.” Olivia tugged out her phone.

Casey saw Toby sagging against the cushions of the couch. “I think we’ve done enough for today. Elliot, Olivia, keep me updated?”

“I’m going to meet Fin and CSU over at the stables, Elliot you good?”

“I got this, go.” Olivia and Casey checked the color of the day with the uniform on duty outside the apartment before opening the door. They  left without goodbyes both preoccupied with the hope that this new information would be the key to breaking the case open.

Elliot went to the kitchen area and got started on some lunch. He felt hemmed in and restless, shaking the tension out of his shoulders every few minutes. He was used to being able to take off after leads. Making sandwiches while his partner and his colleagues sifted through a crime scene was worse than desk duty but reviewing Toby’s statement had taken hours. It was almost noon. Olivia had brought over groceries this morning. Nothing fancy, milk, cereal, sandwich fixings, and canned soup. She had stocked up enough to get them through another day or two. Elliot had thought she was being optimistic at the time but maybe this was the break they needed. Finding the crime scene would go a long way, especially if it hadn’t been scrubbed clean. Detailing somewhere like a stable took skill. Elliot was banking on those losers not having the know-it-all to eradicate all of the trace evidence that an attack that savage would have left behind.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10: Casey Novak and Olivia Benson worked with Toby, going over his statement looking for leads. Toby suggested someone talk to Ryan O'Reily at Oz. We all know if anyone knows anything it's Ryan. We also found out Toby works with Sister Pete helping inmates who have experienced rape and degradation. Elliot got all bristly and over protective. Go figure.
> 
> Toby's memory is slowly coming back and he was able to remember parts of his attack. Elliot and Olivia thought it sounded like Toby may have been attacked in a stable that was being renovated. At the end of the day, Elliot stayed with Toby, Olivia went to check out the stable with Fin, and Munch is heading out to Oz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Smooching ahead! Kudos and comments are appreciated and cause warm, glowing feelings of loveliness. Engender feelings of glowing loveliness, it will increase your karma and make you smile. Smiling is good for your skin.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape, torture, rape recovery, and child abuse. There is also reference to consensual underage kissing, between two kids of the same age.

Toby fell sideways into the couch cushions and groaned. The meeting with Dr. Huang had wrung him out. The young psychiatrist had walked into the apartment with the same placid assuredness of his Oz doppelganger, Father Mukada.  Toby had contemplated going out a window as soon as he saw that face standing behind the couch exchanging pleasantries with Elliot. Fire escape, no fire escape, it did not matter because all the ghosts of Oz were rising and he would sprout wings and fly away.

Unlike Toby’s experience with Elliot, the resemblance between Dr. Huang and Father Mukada did not fade like the that of Elliot and Chris Keller. Dr. Huang’s words were spoken with a measured, gentle cadence. The shrewd insights delivered without the bite of judgment. Toby thought the young man may have been able to see into Chris’ fractured mind. He felt glimmer of hope that maybe Dr. Huang could help him understand the madness that had accompanied his love for Chris. It became apparent as they talked that the doctor had intimate knowledge of Toby’s history and was astute enough to have ferreted out realities that were not recorded in Sister Pete’s psychiatric file. Toby had agreed to meet with Dr. Huang twice a week for the foreseeable future once this case was resolved. Perhaps, with help, he could exorcise the shades that lurked in the farthest corners of his consciousness, like the specter that wore Adam Gunzel’s beaten, swollen face.

Elliot had twitched and squirmed like a dying butterfly pinned to a page in the psychiatrist’s presence. His mood improved as soon as Dr. Huang had departed.

“Dr. Huang makes you nervous.” Toby said as he stretched out on the couch.

“He assumes he knows more than he does.” Elliot emptied three cans of chili into a saucepan to heat for their dinner.

“About you?” 

“He likes to think so.” Elliot scoffed and Toby dropped the subject.

Toby heard the refrigerator open and close. Seconds later Elliot was standing above him offering a can of cola.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to wait on me, Elliot.”

“Gives me something to do.” Elliot checked his watch and then walked over the the front door. He knocked from the inside as he stood to the side, one hand on his weapon. “What’s the color of the day?”

 “Green.”

Elliot smiled and unlocked the door. “Hey Adamson, you pulling a double, who’d you piss off?”

Adamson smirked. “If you find out, Sir, please let me know.” He was young, in his early thirties by Elliot’s estimation, with a few years on the force under his belt. He stood at military ease and Elliot figured him for a fellow Veteran. His fresh, earnest expression complimented by a round open face that had not lost its boyish flush.

Elliot shook his hand. “Nice work yesterday.  I’m making chili. Do you want some?”

“I’m good, Detective Stabler.” Adamson pointed to a small cooler under his chair. “My wife got me settled, but thank you.”

Elliot shut the door, lowered the heat on the chili. Thin wisps of steam rose from the pot carrying the smell of onions and cumin. It smelled like home and Elliot found himself missing the flurry and whirl of his four children at dinner time.

“He seems like a nice kid.” Toby said. He sniffed at the pot and started looking for bowls. There was an odd air of domestic comfort in their dance around the cabinets. Elliot taking out the tortilla chips and Toby searching for a serving spoon. “What’s with the _color of the day_?”

“It’s just a code, changes every day. It gets used when someone is working undercover or on a special detail.  Helps us keep track of the good guys.”

They sat down at the small dining table behind the couch and tucked into their food. Toby enjoyed the quiet and the company. Elliot had not been more than 10 feet away from him since the night in the hospital when he had come to Toby and convinced him to go into protective custody. He tumbled through each day, swept along in a windstorm of conflicting emotions. His body was torn up and his injuries would take months to heal but he was safe, comforted. The physical and emotional attraction to Elliot felt like a beginning and not a stop gap between his heart-rending dreams of Chris. Toby sensed his interest was returned and the trill of excitement was untainted by his own self-hatred.  He did not want to _fuck_ or possess Elliot. He did not want to be consumed by him. Toby wanted to play cards with Elliot, steal lazy kisses, and learn about the places on Elliot’s body that made the man whimper with pleasure. He wanted the impasse in his life created by his attackers to be over but he was afraid what would happen when he was no longer Elliot’s job.

Elliot watched Toby staring into his chili as if the bowl of rich stewed vegetables and meat contained the answer to the origin of the universe. Elliot had seen the same look on his own face in the mirror when his rage threatened to unravel or he felt the revenant of his first kiss. He fought the urge to reach out and cup the other man’s face in his palm. He wondered what the curve of Toby’s jaw would feel like beneath his lips, if the rasp of stubble would be as delicious as he imagined. His father’s face, flushed with mania born of whiskey and loathing sprung forward.  It was a like a bitter talisman that crouched in his mind, rattling its chains to ward off the weakness that Elliot’s father had known slept within his son.  Elliot thrust away the image and rose to put his bowl in the sink.

 “Novak was tough. You did good, that information is going to help.” Elliot said as he settled on the couch.

“Going through it again sucked.”

“I wish I could tell you it gets easier, telling your story over and over again. Olivia says it does. I wouldn’t know.”

“Doesn’t seem that way to me, at least that’s what I say to the guys I meet at Oz.  It doesn’t really go away, it scabs, then scars over.” Toby joined Elliot, the flimsy support of the couch bowing under the weight of two grown men until they were seated hip to ankle against each other. Toby sat forward with his head in his hands. “Sometimes it aches when it rains, like an old break. This is too fresh. I’m not even sure it feels real yet.”

Elliot stretched his hand out, let it hover over the center of Toby’s back, like he was standing at a crossroads watching the diverging lanes roll into unknown destinations. He made his choice and let it fall the remaining distance, his thumb making small circles on the worn fabric of Toby’s sweatshirt.

Toby stiffened at the contact and then relaxed. He leaned back into Elliot’s hand, twisting so he could see the other man’s face. Elliot’s hand remained on Toby’s back. Toby’s blood surged and his upper body fell toward Elliot, the loneliness in one man calling to the suffering in the other. The finite space between them was made of infinite halves and it was an eternity of seconds before their foreheads touched. They sat in the lull, listening to the other’s breath. Elliot was transported in time by the warmth emanating from Toby’s body. A memory broke loose like the face of crumbling glacier.

Mikey Hannon was standing in front of him, three of his father’s cigarettes clutched in his boney fist, sporting a wide crooked-toothed smile.   Mikey was awkward elbows and knees and hit his first growth spurt the summer before Elliot turned 12. They worshipped each other, chasing their shadows through the early summer dusk from stick ball game to bike race. Each one eager to learn the secrets that existed beyond the horizon of childhood.  They had hunkered down in the empty sandlot between St. Andrew’s Parish and Elliot’s house with the cigarettes and two bottles of howdy crème soda.  

Elliot and Mikey made a fort of wooden palettes and sat cross-legged, knee to knee on the scrub grass passing a Newport back and forth. They covered each choking fit with curses that would have made their mother’s hair turn white and tickled their mouths with the wrongfulness of it all. They swigged on the syrupy vanilla soda like their fathers swigged beer.  The air was thick with caustic smoke and sweat when the conversation about girls and seventh grade wound down. They began to talk around day-to-day cruelties, Elliot’s father’s backhand and Mikey’s uncle’s greedy, searching fingers. They spoke in the secret language of children, heads inclined in communion. They dared and comforted each other at once, feinting a little farther toward the truth with each whisper. Elliot had choked on the confession of his latest black eye when Mikey had fallen forward and pressed his lips to Elliot’s mouth.

The shock of lips that were not his mother’s or his sister’s blazed through Elliot. He recognized this as one of those forbidden pleasures of adulthood, kissing, and he pressed back. It was a glorious, revelatory feeling that Elliot was sure must have descended on the Saints when they were canonized by the love of God. That was how his father found them in that empty sandlot. The beating Elliot had received had grown into a thing of legend in the neighborhood. Elliot could recall his father’s frenzy, but not the pain. His mind could conjure spit flying from his father’s lips and the sound of a belt whistling through the air.  Then it was as if someone had cut a picture from a newspaper, left a hole in the center of his memory, and he was at his grandmother’s house sleeping on his belly while his legs healed. Mikey and Elliot had resumed their friendship when Elliot returned from his grandmother’s but it was never as easy as it was in those early summer evenings and the distance grew too wide to surmount by the time school started that fall.

“I don’t understand this.” Elliot said.

“Neither do I.”

Elliot sat back. “Too bad, I was hoping you could help me out.”

Toby swallowed hard. “Elliot, have you been keeping track, here, because I am a complete fucking mess. If you are looking to me for answers to anything other than the time, you are going to be a sorry fucking customer.”

Elliot’s mouth quirked up on one side. “You curse like a sailor.”

“I curse like a con, don’t forget it.”

Elliot rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I haven’t.” Toby started to stand and Elliot grasped his wrist.  “Don’t do that. Please. I don’t care.”

“You should.” Toby sat.

Elliot had not released Toby’s wrist and Toby looked down at where their hands were joined. Toby sagged toward Elliot and Elliot tilted forward. Toby’s head jerked back and Elliot’s hand slid to his neck, “I said I don’t care. I’ve spent my life caring. I’m done.”

“Elliot.” Toby’s hand rose to cup Elliot’s cheek. “I can’t be an experiment for you. Starting something new. I’m wrecked. When you decide that you don’t want this, I’m left with less than nothing, I’m not strong enough to go through that again.”

Elliot’s lips hovered above Toby’s. “You’re not an experiment.” He brushed his mouth across Toby’s jaw, his tongue snaking out to taste the spiced sweetness of aftershave on Toby’s skin. Toby lips parted and a gentle sigh escaped. “Tell me to stop and I will.” Elliot continued his exploration.

The scorching heat of Elliot’s mouth caused an exquisite sloe-honeyed throb between his thighs as his cock filled. “I don’t want to...” Elliot pulled back and Toby gasped at the loss. “to tell you to stop. I want this, I want you.”

Toby heaved forward and their mouths met. His tongue sliding forward to caress the seem of Elliot’s lips. Elliot’s mouth opened Toby sucked his tongue. Elliot moaned and the base, guttural sound released a storm surge. Elliot gathered Toby into his arms and ran his hands across Toby’s back, his hands drinking in the strength beneath Toby’s clothes.  Toby shifted as much as his broken leg would allow and seized Elliot’s arms, slipped his hands upward into Elliot’s hair, across his cheeks, mouthing Elliot’s neck with small nips of his teeth.

“Oh God, Toby.” Elliot panted. His phone chirped in his pocket and he placed his hand on Toby’s chest.  Toby caught Elliot’s ear lobe between his teeth and Elliot pushed Toby away with a gentle shove. “Work.” He said. It was the following day’s color. The text went out each night 15 minutes before third shift started.

Toby flopped backwards into the couch. Elliot raked his eyes across Toby’s body. His cheeks were tinged with pink and his lips were bruised and swollen with kisses.  It made Elliot tremble. He threaded his fingers through Toby’s. “Tell me what you want.”

Toby turned toward Elliot and buried his face the crook between Elliot’s neck and his shoulder. “I should think that would be fairly obvious.” He said, feeling a small pang of loss remembering Chris’ words when he was transferred to Cedar Junction for the murder of Hank Schillinger. He did not want to forget Chris but he did not want him in the room now, not at the start of something that could be good, untainted by the madness that had infected both Chris and himself in Oz. “Second thoughts?” Toby asked, trying to read the intense focus that Elliot was paying to their linked hands.

“No.” Elliot’s voice was soft and certain. Elliot leaned over and kissed Toby once, his lips tender, his tongue making lazy pattern against Toby’s own. “Not at all.” He exhaled and kissed him again. The slow sensuality was a radiant torture, his mouth slick against Toby’s lips, his jaw, his neck “Not. At. All.” He pulled back again and Toby remained still, his eyes glazed with lust. “I have to call in soon. Plus, it might not kill us to slow down a little, last time I got carried away, I ended up married for 20 years with four kids.”

Toby’s head dipped and he grinned. “Are you kidding?”

“Nope.” Elliot drawled the vowel sound out and popped the “p”.

Toby tilted his head back and laughed aloud. “Boy scout.” Elliot snorted. “You need to run as far away from me as you can Detective Stabler.”

“Nope. That is not going to happen Mr. Beecher. I have a vested interest in making sure you come through this in one piece.” Elliot said as he brought Toby’s hand to his lips, running his mouth along the delicate underside of Toby’s wrist.

Toby shivered. “Aim higher, Elliot.” He lifted his head and they kissed again, a drowsy glide of lips and tongue that stretched out with time. Elliot felt awake in his own skin, tingling with craving but content to let this unfold without rush because he wanted more. He wanted to feel Toby’s muscular arms wrapped around his bare shoulders while they rolled in bed with no fear of giving themselves away to a uniform sitting on the other side of the front door. He felt need rushing to his groin, a sultry heaviness that kicked him in the gut.

Elliot pulled away again and issued a low whine. “I have to check in with Adamson’s replacement.” He said and dove in for another kiss. “Really.”

“I don’t believe you.” Toby ran his tongue up Elliot’s neck and delighted in the shudder that wracked Elliot’s body.

 “I do.” Elliot pulled himself off the couch and walked over to the door, standing to the side and knocked. “Officer Parker, it’s Detective Stabler, I’m just checking color of the day.”

There was silence. “Officer Parker called off, this is Officer Simmons, color of the day is blue.”

Elliot straightened. “Thanks Officer. Let me know if you need anything.”  Elliot walked back to the couch and stood in front of Toby. Toby swiped at Elliot's waist to pull him onto the couch and Elliot blocked his hand, motioning for Toby to look at his face.

 Elliot’s mouth was a grim, thin line and his eyes were on fire, but his voice was as light as it had been moments ago. “It’s been a long day, Toby, how about we turn in?” He tugged his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, pulled up something on the screen, and handed it to Toby.

Toby grabbed the phone read the text. It was the standard text from NYPD Central Command.  The color of the day was orange.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to all! Thank you everyone who took the time to leave comments and kudos! I am so grateful you are all willing to take this journey with Toby, Elliot, and I. 
> 
> 4 out of 5 doctors agree that kudos and comments left here lower your cholesterol and brighten your smile! This chapter has lots of bad swears. The LGBTQ epithets are spoken from the mouths of deplorable human beings and are meant to demonstrate how awful these people are...I know that I should not be justifying, but they made me feel icky to write. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape and torture. Oz cannon-typical violence.

Toby looked at the phone Elliot held in front of his face. _Rat’s in the garden, catch ‘em, Tauser._ The old nursery rhyme whirred to life like a record on an old Victrola being wound into action. The time read 11:07 PM and the message was clear, the color of the day was _Orange_. That was not what he had just heard the Officer say.

 _Cow’s in the cornfield, run boys run!_ _fuckingCUNTingFUCKingCOCKsuckingNAZIFUCKS._ The litany of curses crested in Toby’s mind as Elliot’s fingers flew over his phone. Toby’s hands were numb. He flapped his arms trying to get some feeling back. _Crazy’s coming back. shitShitSHitSHItSHIT._ Another wave of panic rolled through his body and Toby’s vision narrowed. Elliot looked like he was standing at the bottom of a well.   _Orange. Fuck._

Toby heard Chris’ voice echoing down a distant and unused corridor in his consciousness. _Hold it together, Tobe. Don’t be a pussy bitch, you gotta whack these motherfuckers._

“I’m not a bitch” Toby muttered aloud. Elliot’s concern ratcheted up another notch. Toby’s face had gone from a pleasant flush of arousal to paste and his chest rose and fell like he had run a marathon.

He shook Toby’s shoulder. “Come on, man, light’s out.” Elliot said, his voice a shade to loud. It echoed as if it was coming from the distant shore of a lake.

Elliot yanked Toby to his feet and held him against his body his mouth pressed to Toby’s ear. “Lock yourself in the bathroom. Turn off the light. Stay to the side of the door. You don’t come out until someone you _know_ tells you it’s safe. Nod if you understand.” Toby nodded. Elliot kissed Toby hard and pointed toward the bathroom.

Toby locked himself inside. _Cat’s in the cream pot, stop her now sir!_ Toby thought as he fought to suppress the manic giggle bubbled inside his throat. His guts had gone to water. He rifled  through the medicine cabinet and the space below the sink for a weapon. He found a pair of nail clippers and an aerosol can of room deodorizer.  There was a folding nail file with a pointed tip on the nail clippers. He unfolded the file and got used to the feeling of the shank in his fist. He made a feint at his thigh, adjusting his grip so it would not slip through his hand.

It was not perfect, but the pointed end might pierce if he could drive it in with enough force. He would have sold his teeth for a bed spring coil or a piece of metal.  He stepped to the side of the door and waited, clippers in one hand and a can of air freshener in the other. It was the epitome of inventive. What had Rebadow told him once? _You play the hand you’re given?_

He heard Elliot order the intruder to drop their weapon. There was a terse exchange and a scuffle. Then the unmistakable sound of a fist connecting with flesh and Elliot reciting the Miranda Warning. Toby heard Elliot’s surprised yelp followed by a hollow thwack and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

“Stupid motherfucking shit-sucking cop.” There was a dull whump and pained grunt. “Goddammit Simmons, you bitch.” Another dull thud and guttural huff. A familiar laugh tore through the remainder of Toby’s rational  mind.

 _Fuck waiting._  Chris whispered in his ear. Toby opened the bathroom door.

_Fire on the mountain, run boys run!_

****

Elliot watched Toby hobble to the bathroom and checked his watch, again. 2309.  He never got past thinking in military time and he knew that regardless of the way he counted the clock, each second was borrowed. If he had the luxury of facing one of these assholes at a time, he knew his hand-to-hand skills would win out. Munch once joked that Elliot could kill a man with his thumbs. Elliot had brushed off the comment, wondering where Munch had managed to get a copy of Elliot’s service record. The Marines had trained him as a hand-to-hand specialist. Using his thumbs to kill someone was a gross exaggeration, but given both hands and some leverage, he would make them hurt.  If there were was more than one guy or if they had guns, well that was something else all together. 

 _If, if, if._ Elliot’s mind spun, then the truth he had learned sweating and bleeding onto the sand in Kuwait stilled those tumbling thoughts. When they came, he would act, and they would come.

Elliot turned out the lights in the living room and the hall. He left the light on in the bedroom and switched on a small clock radio to a talk show station. He set the sound to a low gentle banter.  Elliot checked his phone again. No response from Olivia or Cragen. He did not think the text he got from NYPD Central Command was a sham but no response to the text he had sent 3 minutes ago meant it had not gone through. There was a landline in the bedroom and the kitchen.  He had not dared call from the living room. He took a chance and dialed Olivia’s number from the bedroom phone. If someone was listening in and they cottoned on to the call, they might come through the door that much sooner, but he had to try.

“Benson.” Her voice sounded muffled and throaty.

“Liv, where the hell are you? You left me hanging with my dick in the wind, _again.”_

“What…”

He cut her off, the less she said, the more it might sound like he was just pissed off at a partner who had sold him out for a good night’s sleep. “This sucks, I’ve been on this skel for days. You promised me a night off. What happened, you catch the blue flu from Parker and decide to blow off your shift too?”

“You’re such an ass, Stabler. I’m on my way. You can bet the Captain is going to hear about this, try not to strain yourself too much before I get there, tough guy.”   

Olivia hung up and Elliot gave in to the overwhelming rush of relief. He peered around the corner into the empty living room. The front door was still shut. He swept to the other end of the hall and leaned against the outside of the bathroom door, his weapon drawn. He cocked his head and listened to the sounds in the apartment. He heard a car pass on the street, the wind rattling the pane in the living room, no other sound, no other movement. Elliot knew that Olivia would call for help and be on her way. If they could just hold out.  

Elliot checked his watch again. 2316. Time took on the consistency of the hand made salt-water taffy he would by for his kids out on Coney Island in the summer.  The sugared candy was a pliable wonder when warm, stretching and sticking with impossible alacrity. When it cooled it would snap and crack like hard plastic. The door knob rattled and Elliot inhaled, deep and then let it out through pursed lips in a silent whoosh.

The door creaked open. Elliot dropped to a crouch and prayed Toby was smart enough to not be standing next to the door. He clocked one set of foot steps coming toward him. A man, a few inches shorter than Elliot stepped into view. He was dressed in an NYPD officer’s uniform. The intruder inched into the hall, angling his body toward the bedroom. The man’s face was obscured by shadow. Elliot looked down and saw a hunting blade in the stranger’s right hand.

Elliot brought his weapon to bear. “NYPD. Drop the knife and put your hands on your head.”

The man turned toward Elliot, holding the hand with the knife back while his other hand came up, palm spread toward Elliot. “Hey Detective, I was just coming in to check on you.” He took one step toward Elliot.

“Drop. The. Knife. And put your hands on your head. Now.” Elliot barked.

“It’s okay, settle down. I just wanted to come in and see how you were. Watching out for that faggot must be driving you crazy.”  The intruder took another step and was now a touch to close for Elliot’s comfort.  Elliot took a small step back.

“I’m going to tell you one more time. Drop the knife and put your hands on your head.” Elliot shouted.

“Fuck you.” The man lunged toward Elliot, bringing his arm up on the diagonal and swinging the knife in a wide arc. The force of the swing carried the man’s body too far and Elliot took the opening. He came down with his fist against the man’s temple. The intruder dropped like a stunned Ox. Elliot kicked the knife away and flipped the unconscious man on his stomach as he tugged his cuffs out.

“You are under arrest for breaking and entering and attempted assault of a police officer for starters you asshole. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, can and will be held against you in a court...” A blinding burst of pain erupted in Elliot's skull, obscuring his vision. Elliot fell and was still. 

Ricky Stoddard, Shank, to his brothers, was a 5’11” beast built of prison yard muscle and hate. He stunk of stale cigarettes and raw beef. Shank, a butcher like his father, earned his name from his passion for carving beef and his remarkable ability to inflict pain with a bladed instrument. He was adorned tip to toe with an impressive gallery of tattoos that displayed his fierce and undying loyalty to all things white and American.  Shank was well-respected muscle for hire and what he lacked in ingenuity he made up for in his single-minded adherence to the plans he got at the beginning of a job. Things that did not go according to plan confused Shank and confusion made him ill-tempered.

The cop and Beecher were supposed to be asleep because Simmons was supposed to have given them the daily code. Shank was able to discern that events had not played out according to the plan. His palms itched and he needed to cut something. He had liked slicing up the prags, it had been a pleasure, and set a fire in his belly. The last one in particular, Tobias Beecher. Karl Metzger and Shank had gone to high school together and joined the Brotherhood at the same time. Rumor was that the little piss-ant cunt Beecher was tits deep in Metzger’s death. He had also killed Vern Schillinger. Shank stood above the fallen cop and palmed his hunting knife. He could not think and he ground his teeth.

“Stupid motherfucking shit-sucking cop.” He aimed a swift, vicious kick into the Elliot's stomach and Elliot let out a hurt “huh”.

He walked over to his fallen Aryan brother and slapped his face. Shank had been in a good mood this afternoon. They were going to take another run at the piss-ant cunt and that little slice of strange had been hot.  Chances are that was not going to happen now. It was a distinct possibility that the cops were on the way, so he would have to improvise. Shank hated to improvise.

“Goddammit Simmons, you bitch.” He kicked Simmons and the unconscious body flailed, air puffing out the mouth in woof. The sound made Shank laugh. It reminded him of the sound his sister’s dolly had made after he had slit its throat open. He had been 10 and she was 6 when Sissy had received the cherub-cheeked curly haired doll for Christmas. It cried like a dying goat when she squeezed its belly. The sound had sent spikes of twisted rage streaking through Shank's brain. He had remedied the issue of the crying doll after Christmas dinner. Shank had swiped the carving knife from the Turkey and cut the voice-box out of the blonde haired, blue eyed hunk of plastic. He had taken a beating but the strange barnyard squealing and the painful lights it had created behind his eyelids had stopped. 

“Hey asshole.”  Shank turned and was struck in the face by a steady stream of burning chemical agony. “They say this shit smells like Aloha Spring Rain. What the fuck does that even mean?” Shank was clawing at the hornet’s nest that had exploded in his eyes when Toby brought the pointed nail file down on Shank’s neck in a swift punching motion. The man fell gasping, pumping blood from the wound like a geyser.

Toby dropped the file and knelt by Elliot’s side. Elliot rolled onto his back. Toby placed his hand on Elliot’s brow and Elliot's eyes opened. "Hey there sunshine, welcome back?”

Elliot tried to sit up and Toby nudged his shoulder back toward the floor. “Settle down champ, you took a nasty blow to the head, besides,” He could hear sirens growing closer and multiple sets of footsteps pounding in the hall. “it sounds like the Calvary is coming.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why hello there everyone! Thank you for all the kudos and comments and for sticking with this meandering story. Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and will ring forever in eternity. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape, torture, and rape recovery.

The clock on the wall read 5:42 AM. Elliot was exhausted, sore, and climbing out of skin. His head throbbed. Each thud of his heart sent another wave of pain coursing across his scalp. He sat on a gurney in a curtained cubicle of the Mercy Hospital’s emergency department holding a cold pack to the back his head. He was trying not to think of everything that went wrong in the past 2 days.  He fought against the tide of images in his mind, Toby bleeding, Toby branded, Toby’s body and mind broken by all of the horrors that Elliot had seen during the course of his career as an SVU detective. Elliot’s pulse kicked like a dying rabbit in an owl’s claws. He needed to hit something, a locker, a wall, a Nazi. His vision wobbled and he started to struggle with his breathing, a low whine in his throat.

 _Whatever you do, Stabler, don’t think of a red truck_.  A medic had taught him the trick during a brutal firefight. Elliot had been overpowered by panic when the mission he was on had gone south. Elliot was on his knees in the sand, fighting for air, and pressing on a gaping wound in his best friend’s stomach. The young man had gentled Elliot like a frightened colt, peeling his hands away while others dove in to try and put his friend’s intestines back where they belonged.   _Sam Martin, nice kid from Chillicothe, Ohio._ He was proud to have conjured the medic’s name. Sam had caught Elliot’s bloodied hands in his own and told Elliot not to think of a red truck, snapping off details until the image of his best friend’s gut ripped open was replaced with a 1948 red Ford F-1.

_Don’t think of a red truck with five chrome grille-bars_

_Don’t think of a red truck with five chrome grille-bars and one-piece windshield._

He went through the exercise, adding a new detail to the picture with each repetition until his breathing had settled and he did not feel like his heart was going to beat straight out of his chest.  Once calmed, he started to catalogue events, leaving out details involving tongues and lips and Elliot alight with desperate and bald-faced want. Elliot struggled to make sense of the inconsonant images that littered his memory. He needed to know how had it led to Elliot waking up with a sticky warmth spreading beneath his body, overwhelmed by the sickening sweet stench of a burnt copper.

Elliot’s recollections coruscated, brilliant for a moment and blinking out like dying stars.   Toby crooning that help was coming and that they had survived thanks to a stranger’s good grooming habits and rain in Hawaii. Red droplets splattered across Toby’s face as if someone had flicked him with a paint brush drenched in gore.  The unmistakable pattern of arterial spray along the wall and ceiling.  One dead Nazi, his face a rictus of torment, hands frozen into claws.  Quietude fractured by an armada of armed men and women. First responders with whom Elliot was not familiar. Toby dragged away from Elliot’s side, his hands on his head in surrender, despite Elliot’s protests. Then questions and paramedics and Captain Cragen insisting Elliot get transported to the ED.  He gasped and started the process again.

_Don’t think of a red truck._

Ten minutes later he could breath. He listened to the whips and whirs of machines instead of trying to untangle his thoughts. The discordant cacophony of voices rose and fell against the backdrop of electronic sounds. A shouted invective from a family member harmonizing with the terse orders from a doctor, and the mumbled sobs of another patient. Elliot’s ribs were wrapped tight, two broken from the Nazi’s kick. He shifted on the gurney, tried to lie down, and gave up when his bruised abdominal muscles screeched in protest.

Rollers clattered in the ceiling track as the privacy curtain was whisked aside. “Elliot, what happened? Are you okay? God, I was so worried when Cragen called.” Kathy’s eyes were wide with shock and she was running her hands over his body assessing for injuries while the words rushed out of her mouth.  “He wouldn’t tell me anything, just that you were alive.”

Elliot stared at his ex-wife as if she had just stepped off the moon. “Kathy…”

She tugged the curtain back into place for privacy and arched an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing, El.”

Elliot was surprised at how comforting it was to know that she was still concerned, that the divorce had not unraveled 20 years of companionship. “Bad guys, Kath, bad guys with steel-toed boots.”

 “I’m glad you’re okay.” Kathy grimaced and cupped his cheek in her palm.

“Me too.”

“I’m so stupid.” Her face crumpled and she scrubbed at her eyes trying to brush the tears away. “I thought that it’d be easier once we weren’t together.” She sniffed and rummaged through her purse, pulling out a tissue. “Turns out those 3 AM calls are still awful.”

Elliot slipped his arms around her, murmuring comforting nonsense while she cried. After a few minutes her tears slowed and she unwound herself from Elliot’s embrace.

“Kathy, I’m okay.” He spread his arms and shrunk back when his body protested.

“Mmm-hmm. I see that.”

“Knock. Knock.” Elliot was relieved to hear Olivia’s voice. She poked her head through the curtain, not bothering to hide her surprise when she saw Kathy. “Oh…Sorry, hi Kathy. Elliot.” Olivia infused his name with all the relief that she felt seeing her partner conscious and no worse for the wear.  “Once you’re cleared we still need your statement."

“Olivia.” Kathy acknowledged Olivia. Kathy and Olivia had always been civil bordering on warm with each other. Kathy understood Olivia’s role in protecting Elliot’s life every day. She trusted Olivia to get Elliot home safe, even if she did worry about the potential for blurred boundaries. It was clear from her icy tone that she was not going to let Olivia off the hook.  “So where were you when all this happened?”

 _No tears and hugs for Olivia, she’s going to be crushed._ Elliot thought and had to bite his cheek to keep from smirking. 

Olivia rolled her shoulders and shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “I’ll give you two a minute. Good to see you Kathy.” Olivia ducked out of the cubicle and then poked her head back inside. “Oh, and El, you have a visitor. He’s been asking about you non-stop. Let me know if you want me to bring him back or if we should get him settled somewhere, it’s your call.”

Elliot slumped with relief. Kathy forgotten. “Is he okay?”

“He’s shaken up. Captain called Huang in and he’s been with him for about three hours.” Olivia paused. Elliot could read she was contemplating how much to share with Kathy present. “Kathy, can you give us a few minutes?”

Elliot jumped before the situation had a chance to head south. “Thanks so much for coming, Kath, but I’ve got hours to go before I’m done here. You should go home.”

“I know, I know.” Kathy’s expression was resigned. “I’m glad you’re okay, Elliot. Call me if you need anything.” She kissed his cheek. “Take care Olivia.”

“Bye Kathy.” She waited for Kathy to leave. “That was…Friendly?”

“Liv?”

“How much do you remember?”

“Not a lot. I remember taking one guy down and then someone hit from behind, hard.” Elliot scowled.

“The guy you cuffed was…” Olivia pulled a small notebook from the inner pocket of her single breasted, black leather biker jacket. “Jake Simmons. The other guy was Ricky Stoddard went by ‘Shank’.”

“Shank? Sounds like a genius.”

“Lifetime member of Mensah. Toby managed to take him out. He saved your life.”  

“I figured as much.” Olivia’s mouth turned down. “I came to in a pool of blood that wasn’t mine or Toby's, I didn’t think it got there by magic.  Where are we at with the case?”

“Two down. Cragen is having a kitten about security. Fin and Munch are sweating Simmons at the station. Do you want to see Toby? If you’re not up for it, I’m sure he would understand.”

“Olivia.” Elliot tried to imbue as much confidence as he could into his tone. “Yes, I want to see him and I promise that once this case is over and I’ve had at least three days to do nothing but sleep, I will let you ask me anything you want to ask.”

“And you’ll answer?”

“Never said that, did I?” Elliot smirked.

Olivia laughed and stepped out of the room coming back moments later with Toby in tow. Toby was wearing a set of loose-fitting scrubs in that odd shade of blue that lives between cerulean and teal and is exclusive to hospital issue clothing everywhere.  There were broad dark smudges beneath Toby’s eyes. He shuffled like a sleepwalker and Elliot recognized the same exhausted slope to Toby’s shoulders that Elliot felt in his own body.  

Olivia backed out saying she was going to scare up a cup of coffee and check in with Munch and Fin. Elliot’s face turned scarlet when Olivia looked straight at him and smiled. It was the wide, mischievous grin that told Elliot that she had seen straight through his ruse. Elliot was startled that the reflection was not followed by the sound of his father’s voice or the crack of a belt. It was a foreign experience to not feel haunted, freeing in a way that he had never experienced.

Toby clucked his tongue and stepped into Elliot’s space. “Elliot, you are the _least_ subtle person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I’m pretty sure they can see that blush from space.”

“ _They_ can, huh?” Elliot caught Toby by the waist and enfolded him into the circle of his arms. “I was worried about you.” Elliot’s crushed Toby to his chest and kissed his neck.

Toby spread his hands across Elliot’s back and clung to Elliot with equal ferocity. “I’m not the one who got knocked unconscious.”

Elliot seized Toby’s shoulders and held him at arms length. He watched Toby’s mouth turn downward and the relief tumble off his expression like the side of a hill crumbling under the weight of a landslide.

“Fuck.” Toby gasped. Elliot drew him close.

“We’re okay. We’re okay. We’re okay.” Elliot chanted the words like a mantra.

Elliot’s phone chirruped.

“Stabler.”  Toby watched the one-sided conversation unfold, Elliot’s face cycling through frustration, doubt, then shock. Elliot grunted assent at regular intervals. Toby paced away and fiddled with the bulb on the blood pressure cuff that was attached to the wall. Elliot was arguing now, his clipped responses punctuated by curses. Toby stopped listening and let his mind wander.

He was crippled with fatigue. His index fingers made small circles on his temples. Three hours with a shrink and his thoughts were wheeling and calling like a congress of thick-bodied ravens. He sunk into the chair in the corner and tilted his head back against the wall. He wanted to sleep, for days.

The wild mania that had infected him had drained away as soon as he had stepped out of the bathroom, calm settling in his bones, like the undisturbed surface of a mountain lake at dawn. It was a revelation in a way, to recognize that the frenzied rhymes had been the mask and the cool detachment was the true face of his insanity. He had hoped to have left that man, that killer, in Oz. That was what he told himself when he made it through a day without tearing men apart with his hands. Murder had leached into his skin and polluted his blood. The men in Oz were steeped in violence and inhumanity. Nothing was untouched by the barbarism. It flooded and filled every darkened corner and empty space.  Every day on the outside was another opportunity to bind and exorcise the depravity. He had loosed that the destructive phantasm when he heard Elliot fall.

 Elliot snapped his phone shut. “Toby?” Elliot called. Toby shook his head as if he was just waking.

“What now?”

Elliot considered how much to share and how much to let ride until they both had a chance to sleep. The Captain was on board with Elliot’s theory that there was a leak at the 16th.  The betrayal made Elliot nauseous. Cragen said that Dr. Huang was concerned about Toby’s mental status fraying under the building pressure. He had made a weak attempt to send Elliot home. Elliot had snapped that he had no intention of backing off this case. Cragen retorted that he was just saying it to make himself feel better. Elliot had said that he and Toby were going to get lost for 24 hours to give Toby some room to relax and him an opportunity to sleep. Cragen grumbled about Elliot’s lack of objectivity and Elliot rung off.

_Same old dance, one, two, three, cha, cha, cha._

Elliot stood, movements slow and tender. “Now?” He put on his shirt. “There’s a leak at the precinct. You and I need to get away while they hunt that down. So, Toby, what do you say? Want to get lost with me for a day or two?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everyone for reading and leaving Kudos and Comments! I am so touched that people are responding to this story. HAPPY DANCE!
> 
> Schmoop ahead. I can't help myself! 
> 
> References in this chapter include: The short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving and the song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meatloaf.
> 
> Con Crit, Kudos, and Comments are greatly appreciated and I've heard that encouraging authors on AO3 is good for your heart.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape, torture, PTSD/Trauma related reactions. Please be careful and protect yourself.

Elliot stopped the car outside of Woodbury, NY for gas and supplies. He leaned against the car, a deep ache permeated his entire body. There was a stiff slowness to his movements belying his insistence that his injury was no more than a nuisance. Elliot pumped fuel and watched as the setting sun suffused the mackerel sky with fire. The scent of burning leaves and gasoline hung heavy around the small service station. He thought of his mother and the lunatic ghost-light that would fall across her face like a scrim every autumn.  She would drive for hours telling him her own twisted versions of Washington Irving stories when the leaves began to turn color. Elliot spent his childhood convinced that headless Hessians and men bearing enchanted draughts of moonshine hid behind every tree along the I-87 corridor to the Catskills.  

“ _And as he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s debt, nobody troubled their head about him anymore.”_ Toby said as he walked up beside Elliot. “If only I could just disappear like old Ichabod.”

Elliot was startled out of his own thoughts. “I was just thinking about that story.”

“Hard not to this time of year.” Toby opened the back door of the pewter Ford Focus sedan and placed several overfull plastic sacks of groceries on the back seat. They had switched out the motor pool car Elliot had borrowed from the precinct for their current transportation in a Park and Ride lot outside of White Plains. Toby had noticed Elliot’s tension begin to ebb as soon as they had left the motor pool car behind and began heading north in a new vehicle. Toby handed Elliot the change from the gas and the groceries and they drove back toward the interstate.  

“Where are we going again?”

Elliot kept his eyes focused on the road, it would do no good for their plans to be derailed by hitting a deer. “Glenford. A guy I served with has a small cabin by Kenozia Lake off Route 28.  It’s not much, a couple of rooms, but it gets us out of the way for a few days while they deal with the leak.”

“Is it safe?”

“From Nazi’s?  Yeah. You’ve been moved to another safe house in Queens as far as anyone at the 16th knows. Cragen is setting up a sting with Internal Affairs.” Toby heard the way Elliot’s teeth clenched when he mentioned the investigative department responsible for policing cops.

“Detective Guzman, the one I met with this morning, he was with Internal Affairs, right? He was an ass wipe.”

“Believe it or not, Guzman’s boss makes him look like the NYPD Goodwill Ambassador.”

Toby shivered and stared out the window. It was full dark and Toby watched the deep black of the tree line race beneath the India-ink of the night sky. The car was quiet save the whir of the wheels against the asphalt and the hum of the engine. Exhaustion pulled at the corners of his eyes but he was still jittering with the last dregs of adrenaline. Toby had managed a few hours of sleep on a couch in the precinct’s loft that afternoon. It had been hard to wind down even after he had been reassured multiple times by Casey Novak and Dr. Huang that he had acted in self-defense and in the defense of a decorated Detective. Toby had been convinced he would be on the first bus back to Oz when the police had arrived at the safe house and hauled him away from Elliot. Captain Cragen and Detective Benson had called in Dr. Huang when Toby’s panic peaked and he had decompensated into spouting old English nursery rhymes and pacing.

Toby turned toward Elliot and watched him drive. The man’s face was grim with pain in the weak light coming from the dashboard. Toby let his mind drift. An old song caught on a groove in his mind and he chuckled.

“Something to share?” The hard line of Elliot’s mouth softened.

“Just thinking of song.”

“Which one?”

“ _Though_ _it’s cold and lonely in the deep, dark night.”_  Toby crooned and Elliot joined in for the next line. “ _I can see paradise by the dashboard light.”_

They both laughed aloud and fell into an easy back and forth about the best make-out music from their teens.

“Toby, can I ask you a question?”

“That sounds ominous, Detective.”

“No, it’s not. I mean…if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to…it’s just.” Elliot stammered.

“You’re nothing like him.” Toby said.

“What?”

“You’re nothing like Chris.”

“Thanks, but I knew that.” Elliot chanced a quick glance at Toby. His mouth was drawn into a circle of surprise and Elliot detected hurt in his deep, furrowed brow. "I’m not judging you or him.” Elliot stopped again, took a breath, and continued. “I guess I am judging him. I read his file, Toby. The crime scene photos. His rage. He was a brutal predator, but you don’t need me to give you a psych profile of Christopher Keller.”

“No. No I don’t.” Toby snapped.

“Look, I’m not…shit.” Elliot pounded the steering wheel and then flinched when the sudden movement aggravated his ribs. “I’m curious about your relationship with him, confused about it, but I didn’t have to survive in that place, so ignore me. What the fuck do I know, right?”

Toby used the heel of his palms to smooth the skin on his forehead. “I loved him. I thought I did, at least. Whatever we had, it was fragile and it always hurt. Do you know what I told him right before he killed himself?”

Elliot shook his head, shocked at the hard left their conversation had taken.  He wanted to interrupt and get them back to that comfortable place where they had been talking about kissing and music. Curiosity about Toby’s relationship with Keller won out and he kept silent.

“I told him that he was death. That our relationship was over because I wanted to live.”

“And he killed himself?”

Toby’s voice was dead pan, like he was telling Elliot about the weather. “He did. He threw himself over the railing of the upper tier yelling my name. I have lived out those seconds thousands of times, wondering what I could have done to stop him. I finally accepted that it was his last ditch effort to keep us together. He’d be dead, I’d get the death penalty for killing him, and we’d meet up in Heaven like he said we would.”

“I’m sorry, Toby.”

“For what?”

“For all of it. For losing someone you loved. For Chris not being who you needed him to be.” Elliot wished he was not driving, that he could watch Toby’s expression, and gauge whether Toby understood.  Elliot started to worry when Toby did not respond right away and his unease grew as the miles ticked away.  Elliot noted that 13 miles had passed when Toby responded.

“It’s been four years since he died. No one ever said that to me, not even when it happened. Thank you, Elliot.” Toby’s voice was rough with emotion.

Elliot reached across the seat and took Toby’s hand in his own, drawing it into his lap. The quiet stretched out for several more miles.

“Elliot, what did you want to ask me?”

“Never mind. It was stupid.” Elliot felt his face glowing with embarrassment.

“No, I made a stupid assumption. Ask me. Please?”

“I was just wondering, were you interested in…men...before you met Keller? Was he the first?”

“Oh that.” Toby was relieved and huffed a sigh. “Is it strange that I find that a far simpler question to answer."

Elliot squeezed Toby’s hand. “Not based on what you’ve told me so far.”

“Yes. Keller was the first man I was attracted to and it scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I even asked Sister Pete about whether it was possible to fall in love another man.”

“You asked a nun?”

“You met Sister Pete. She didn’t exactly fall over in shock.”

“What did she say?” Elliot was intrigued. He tried to picture asking his second grade teacher, Sister Theodosia, about falling in love with a man. He remembered her doughy, round face framed by wisps of flaming orange hair that would sneak out from beneath her wimple when she was excited or angry. He thought she was at least 100 years-old when he was seven and realized now she must have been in her fifties. The Sister was quick to chastise the mischievous with her metal tipped ruler, but she also had a resonant, booming laugh and carried candy ribbons in her pocket to ease playground scrapes and hurt feelings. He thought Sister Theodosia might have dealt with the question with more worldliness and grace than he could imagine.

“She hedged, it was like her super power. I finally decided that it didn’t matter. Love is love. There was so much shit in my life the fact that I could feel anything was astounding.”

Elliot nodded. They eased back into the relaxing banter of earlier and soon they were turning off I-87 onto Route 28. The road had two lanes heading east and west that were separated by a double yellow line. There was the occasional street lamp illuminating stretches of heavy foliage interrupted by a car wash or a service station. After 15 minutes they turned onto a rural two-lane country road that ran its length beside a small marshy lake. Across the pocked motorway there were several houses spaced far enough apart that the warm light that streamed from some of the windows did not reach the border of the road and was obscured from the other houses by a dense forest.

Elliot pulled into the drive of a one-story white clapboard farmhouse and it’s listing, wind-worn barn. He parked behind the house. Toby got out and looked toward the sky, amazed at the dusting of stars. Frigid autumn air snapped against his cheeks. The trees around the house creaked and whined with the gentle wind and he could hear the soft lapping of water against the shore of the lake.  Elliot was standing in front of him when he looked back toward the ground, his face lit by the waxing moon. Toby’s breath caught in his throat and he felt his eyes well with tears.

“Hey there.” Elliot reached out and squeezed Toby’s shoulder.

“I forgotten there was more.” Toby stepped forward into Elliot’s arms and pressed his lips to Elliot’s in a slow, sensuous kiss. “I’ve been alone so long, I’ve forgotten that people talk about stupid songs and sex and books. Do you know how long it’s been since I looked at the stars?”

“Too long.” He brushed his lips against Toby’s. “I think it’s been too long.”

“It’s beautiful. Thank you for reminding me.”

Elliot grinned like a boy who had just discovered that riding his bike hands-free felt like flying. “You’re welcome.” He said. “Anytime.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut and Angst Ahead. I have shamelessly borrowed a few lines from the Oz, it couldn't be helped.
> 
> Hello Everyone! Thanks again for the kudos and comments, they keep the Muse happy and productive. Last time she was left to her own devices she tottered off to Vegas on a bender and came back with a llama and a tattoo of Elvis. It was NOT pretty!
> 
> Kudos, comments, and Con Crit are most appreciated, and help keep that silly Muse under control and the world safe for democracy. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape and torture, description of Toby's attack/rape, and PTSD related flashbacks. 
> 
> Please protect yourself! I will post a summary on the next chapter so that you can skip this one if you need to, it's not too graphic but I would rather that folks don't test those fences if it's not safe to do so!

A cool breeze ruffled the water of Kenozia Lake. Toby stood in a rough scrub of grass and tangled weeds by the shore. The rising sun painted the scattered clouds shades of pale gold and rose. He leaned on a black curved handled cane and thought about waking in the pre-dawn with Elliot’s chest pressed against his back and his breath, warm and sour with sleep huffing across Toby’s neck. A skein of Canadian geese passed low and then circled around the shore line, landing in the center of the lake, splashing and calling to each other.

He watched the morning unfold, wondering what the day held. _What does Elliot want?_ Was it as simple as attraction, the excitement of a sexual boundary that had never been crossed? Elliot had promised that Toby was not an experiment. His attentions felt genuine and unforced.  Question after question tugged at his consciousness like restless children begging for sweets. _Why did Elliot have to step into his life now?_ His body was ruined and his mind had been brought low. _What could he give to a man who had lived a good life?_   He had locked down his emotions after Chris committed suicide. Toby spent the last years of his incarceration in studied separation examining the wreckage he had wrought on the people he loved.

Toby had come to terms with the toxicity that had permeated his relationship with Chris and vowed to never walk down that road again. Everything he loved became tainted with the poison that flowed through his life during the darkest years. _How much suffering did he need to endure before his debt was paid?_ It had been years since he had the pleasure of another body beside his own in the dark. Toby longed to give himself over to Elliot’s touch without thought to what came next, but Toby was hunted by the ghosts in his past and when their presence bled through no one was safe. He wanted, though. Toby craved the simple, gentle care that Elliot offered and he was beginning to doubt that he was strong enough to walk away. He turned and limped back to the farmhouse, the quiet of the morning offering no answers to the questions that hounded his uneasy mind.

Toby clomped up the steps of the farmhouse, trying to minimize the thudding of his cast. The farmhouse was small and he did not want to wake Elliot. He stopped inside the front door, looking to see if there was firewood stacked beside squat iron wood stove. The morning was chilly and a fire would take the edge off the nip in the air. The front room was cramped, with the stove ringed by a stiff cushioned avocado colored sofa and two Adirondack chairs on one end, a dining table in the center and a kitchenette on the opposite side of the room. The counter area stretched along the wall with a deep farm sink in the center and open shelves beneath the work space that were stocked with cleaning supplies, plates, and cookware. The refrigerator stood in the corner on one end of the counter beside a narrow 4-burner cook top and oven combination. Toby had joked that the appliances were new circa 1978 judging by the squared edges and mustard color. Both men had been surprised when the ancient refrigerator had whirred to life. There was a decal of a breaching large mouth bass on the freezer door. Toby had traced it with delicate finger and told Elliot that his father had applied the same decal to the deep-freeze lid in the Beecher’s hunting cabin near Swanton, Vermont.

Elliot had asked Toby about his father and Toby was surprised to find that he was able to share his memories of Harrison Beecher without the accompanying pangs of guilt. He talked about sunrise fishing trips and his first cup of coffee.  He told Elliot about how grown up he felt, sipping the scalding bitter liquid from the plastic thermos cup as he and his father cast their lines into the murky waters of Missisquoi Bay. It was gift to remember that moment, to recall that there was more to the Beechers than Toby’s drinking, Kathy Rockwell, and the destruction that followed.

Toby and Elliot worked together to put the supplies away and then fell into the double bed in the farmhouse’s one bedroom. Neither had discussed sharing a bed, but both men were exhausted from the trip. The mattress was comfortable despite its initial moaning protestations when two full-grown muscular men fell onto it without concern for its structural integrity. Toby had tugged the quilted counterpane over their bodies, pummeled the dust off his pillow and sunk into a comfortable, dreamless sleep. He shook off the memories of the previous evening and found some fire wood in a chest beside the wood stove.  Toby built up a small blaze and went to check on Elliot.  Elliot was sprawled on his back, his face untroubled and young in sleep. Toby budged up onto the right side of bed, leaning against the headboard.

The clouds in the sky whispered of rain later in the day and Toby’s left leg was saturated by a bone-deep ache. Elliot rolled onto his side and his face contorted as the shift in position aggravated his ribs. Toby settled down on his left side facing Elliot and stroked Elliot’s forehead murmuring comforting nonsense. He had thought Elliot had settled back into sleep and leaned in to brush his lips against Elliot’s cheek. Elliot turned his face toward Toby and captured his mouth in a gentle kiss. A sleepy chuckle rolled through Elliot’s chest.

“That cast makes you about as stealthy as a heard of elephants.”

“Sorry, I woke you. I couldn’t sleep.”

Elliot lips grazed Toby’s jaw. “You shouldn’t go wandering around by yourself.”

“You’re right, there is danger lurking around every corner out here. I was almost mugged by some shifty looking geese, but I think they sensed my crazy and left me alone.”

Elliot stopped kissing Toby and looked the other man in the eye. “I’m not kidding Toby. You can’t go off alone right now.”

Toby wanted to argue that he had survived for nine years in a maximum security prison but he was distracted by Elliot resuming his journey mapping Toby’s neck with gentle nips.

“Elliot.” Toby tilted his head to give Elliot better access and shuffled closer. He stroked Elliot’s flank, running his hand across Elliot’s lower back and then downward, massaging the firm muscle of his ass. Elliot surged forward and froze with a hiss.

“Elliot?”

“Moved to fast.” Elliot wheezed as the wrenching hurt subsided.

“How about this, I promise not to go anywhere alone, if you promise not to break yourself?”

Elliot’s nodded in assent and Toby inched forward until their bodies were aligned from toe to forehead. He felt Elliot’s hardness and looked between them, Elliot’s erection tented his sweatpants. Toby’s hand drifted downwards and he brushed against the pulsing heat of Elliot’s hardness. Elliot’s breath caught and his hips thrust forward again.

Toby’s propped himself up on an elbow and pushed up the sweatshirt Elliot had slept in, letting his hand tease the coarse trail of hair beneath Elliot’s navel. He sighed as he pulled at the waist band of Elliot’s sweatpants and briefs, tugging them down until Elliot’s cock sprung free.

“You’re gorgeous, El.” Toby whispered. He ran his finger from the root of Elliot’s shaft to the flushed and leaking tip. All the questions he had wrestled with earlier faded away in the shadow of his yearning. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.” Elliot’s attention was riveted to Toby’s hand on his shaft and his breath rushed out as Toby began to move in a gentle rhythm. Heat coiled low in Elliot’s gut and he pushed into Toby’s hand with more force ignoring the band of pain in his chest. The feeling of another man’s calloused, rough hand on his cock was exquisite. This was not the gentle shifting caress of Kathy’s delicate fingers, Toby’s touch was sure and hungry. The still, separate part of his mind wondered how he had reached the border of 40 without ever knowing the flawless sweet hunger that accompanied another man’s touch.

“You’re so hard, baby.” Toby’s mouth hovered over Elliot’s lips, breathing in the air that was being punched out of Elliot’s lungs with each pass of Toby’s hand. Elliot grunted, his body stiffening. Toby felt Elliot’s cock harden even more and swept his thumb over the slit.

“Come on Elliot, show me. I want to see what I can do to you. how good I make you feel.” Toby panted. “Let me see you come.”

The throaty desire in Toby’s voice sent Elliot over the edge. Elliot keened Toby’s name like a mantra as his hips stuttered and his cock pulsed his spend across Toby’s hand, his stomach, and the sheets. Elliot collapsed and Toby kissed him, a languorous swipe of lips and tongue. Toby slipped out of his sweatshirt and t-shirt, tossing the sweatshirt aside and using the t-shirt to clean them both. He threw it over the side of the bed and cuddled into Elliot’s body resuming their gentle, unhurried kisses.

Elliot leaned back and met Toby’s eyes. “That was amazing. I’ve never…I’m…” Elliot shook his head at a loss for words and traced Toby’s lips with his index finger. “You’re amazing, Toby.”

Elliot kissed him and the craving in Elliot’s touches returned.  Elliot’s hand made a path down Toby’s chin, over his chest, skimming his waist and clenching Toby’s hip. The pressure of Elliot’s hand sparked a cascade of memories. Vern’s fingers digging into his hip, demanding stillness as he branded Toby’s ass. Chris’s hand gentling across Toby’s waist, hesitant, before dipping his head, a supplicant, petitioning for a New Years kiss. The cold scraping concrete abrading his naked skin while three strangers raped him and laughed like cackle of hyenas.

Toby’s body was alight with warring sensations.  His left leg itched beneath his cast and his legs and arms were pulsating with teeth-grinding agony. His cock throbbed with want and there was a tender hollow prickling in the center of his chest. Toby tried to focus on the feeling of desire but his mind kept slipping into the memory of harsh, grasping hands tearing at his skin. Toby’s breath seized in his chest and he pushed Elliot away.

 “El,” He said as he collapsed forward. Toby buried his face in the crook of Elliot’s neck and inhaled the scent of fresh sweat and sleep. “Sorry, I’m…as much as I want…fuck.” Toby’s hands started to tingle with pins and needles and his breath came in harsh gasps.

Elliot looked Toby in the eye. He saw the terror and the want fighting for dominance.  He made a quieting sound and pulled Toby closer so that their bodies were aligned but comfort had taken the place of passion.

Toby tried to roll away and Elliot held him close.

“It’s okay, Toby. We moved too fast. Just breathe.”

Toby clung to Elliot until his breathing slowed. He sat up and buried his face in his hands. “I used to be normal.”

“You’re still normal.”

Toby looked over his shoulder at Elliot. “Elliot, I stabbed a man with a nail file.”

Elliot shrugged. “You used what was handy, I’d call that smart.”

“I once shit on a man’s face.”

“Yeah.” Elliot sighed. “I read about that.”

“That’s not normal.”

“As far as I can tell, it was an extreme reaction to a fucked up situation.”

Toby scrubbed at his face and smiled. “Extreme.” He tried out the word. “I like that. Extreme. That’s me.”  Toby reached for his sweatshirt, slipped it on, and flopped backwards onto the mattress beside Elliot. “Sorry for ruining the mood.”

Elliot reached out and let his hand rest on Toby’s stomach, not moving, just letting the warmth of his touch comfort the other man.

“Toby, you didn’t ruin anything.”  He kissed Toby. “If anything I feel like a dick because I pushed too hard.”

Toby’s mouth turned downward. “You pushed too hard? I was the one shoving my hands down your pants, remember?”

“Hard to forget.”  Elliot chuckled. “Look, what we did, that was incredible but I think we need to slow it down a little, at least until we catch the men who hurt you. The Captain would have my badge if he knew what was going on between us.”

Toby heard the rejection in Elliot’s voice. He swung his legs toward the floor, turning his back on Elliot.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Elliot sensed the shift in Toby’s mood, felt the chill and struggled to sit. “Toby, what’s going on?”

“Elliot, don’t worry about it. I got carried away. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“Toby.” Elliot stood and cursed as his body protested. He walked around to Toby’s side of the bed and sat beside him. “I’m not saying that I don’t want it to happen again. I would love for it to happen again. It’s going to happen again. Often. And I want to be able to give you something in return but right now?  Me being wrapped up in you means I’m not doing my job and my job is to keep you safe. Once this is over we have all the time in the world to figure “ _us”_ out without having to hide it from anyone or worrying that someone is going to attack us if we set foot outside without back up.”

Elliot’s phone rang. Toby stretched across the bed and handed it to Elliot. He replayed Elliot’s words, focusing on the last thing Elliot said. _They_ would have time to figure “ _us”_ out. “ _Us”_. Toby had not been part of an “ _us”_ for years, at least an “ _us”_ that did not involve warfare and heartache and death.  It was clear that Elliot wanted to be with him after the case was over.  Toby let himself imagine lazy Sunday afternoons. The two of them curled on the couch, dressed in sweats. Elliot watching football and Toby reading the Times, the smell of coffee and bacon still hanging in the air from the breakfast they had cooked together. It was the first time in years that Toby allowed himself to think of a future in which he was not alone.  The questions he had considered earlier had multiplied and returned with force. Would Elliot want Toby to meet his children? Was it safe to contact his brother? His heart started to race. Would he be able to see Holly and Harry? Would Elliot want to be part of fixing a broken family? He let thought after thought chase itself through his mind.

“Toby, you in there.” Elliot shook his shoulder.

“Sorry, I got lost for a second.”

“Are you alright?” Toby smiled and Elliot grasped Toby’s hand in his own. “Good. I have some news. The information you gave us yesterday, about the stable. They found the place, CSU confirmed that was where you were attacked.”

“That’s good, right?”

“That’s great, Toby. The next part might be hard to talk about, is it okay to keep going?”

“Yeah.” Toby said and squeezed Elliot’s hand.

“When you were in the hospital we ran a rape kit and found three separate DNA profiles.”

Toby interrupted. “How did they leave DNA, they used condoms?”

“An attack like that, they were bound to leave pieces of themselves behind, plus they tossed the condoms out in one of the old construction dumpsters. No construction, no trash pick up.” Elliot’s smirk was predatory, feral. “Prints too, off condom wrappers and an empty box of cigarettes. The good news is that we have an ID on the third guy. Does the name Joseph Lopresti sound familiar?”

Toby’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

“It does, doesn’t it? The third guy, where do you know him from?”

“I don’t know him, Elliot.” Elliot sagged. “But, there was a guard named Lopresti when I was inside.”

Elliot perked up again and flipped open his phone. “I’ll let the Captain know.”

“Good, because Lopresti was a class a douche bag, and Elliot.” Elliot stopped with his hand hovering over the key pad. “Make sure you tell your Captain that Lopresti was in tight with the Brotherhood.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 15: Toby spent some time musing over questions about the future of his relationship with Elliot. Elliot and Toby engaged some NC-17 fun but it was cut short because Toby suffered a PTSD flashback. Elliot was understanding and wonderful. Elliot got a call from Olivia that they had identified Toby's third attacker, one Joseph Lopresti.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Everyone! Thank you so much for the kind words, kudos, and comments. I can't believe this has gotten over 500 hits, I'm really touched and grateful! 
> 
> Just a note of warning, this chapter is pretty angst-ridden and there are some harsh judgments made about the nature of Toby's and Chris' relationship and Chris' ability to love Toby. Just remember this is Elliot's perspective based on the work that he does for SVU. 
> 
> As always comments, kudos, and Con-Crit are more than welcome, are appreciated, and will be immortalized on a decorative coin for your viewing pleasure. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: References to rape, torture, and child abuse.

Toby and Elliot moved around each other with ease throughout the course of the day.  Elliot sprawled on the mustard couch, drifting in and out of a pleasant doze as he soaked up the wood stove’s heat. Toby found a battered copy of Stephen King’s _The Shining_ on a bookshelf in the bedroom and begged a corner of the couch which Elliot shared with a grumble until Toby started rubbing the soles of Elliot’s feet while he read.

The day shuffled along with quiet grace, turning on its heel toward evening without a whisper. Some time during the early afternoon Toby drifted into a quiet dream where he was drinking coffee with Chris and his father in a row boat. Toby woke with a snuffle when the logs in the stove shifted and fell. The fire had died and the air in the cabin was cooling as daylight faded. The clouds that threatened in the morning, blanketed the sky in a flat gunmetal grey caul. They obscured the sunset and pulled darkened shadows from the corners of the room. Toby listened to the birds calling to each other in the dying light.  Elliot stirred in his sleep, his feet slipping from Toby’s lap. Toby took the opportunity to rise and stoke the fire, when he turned Elliot was awake and smiling.

“Detective Stabler, are you staring at my ass?”

“Busted.” Elliot groaned, holding his sides as he sat up. “Every time I move, I hate Nazi’s just a little more.”

“That’s a pretty bold statement.”

“I’m a bold guy.” Elliot patted the couch cushion. “Come here.”

Toby lowered himself onto couch, leaning his head on Elliot’s shoulder. Elliot threaded his fingers through Toby’s and they sat listening to the fire crackle and hiss.

“Elliot?”

“Hmmm.”

“How are you so okay with this?” Toby asked as he squeezed Elliot’s hand. “I was obsessed when I thought I had feelings for Chris and still it was weeks of half-naked wrestling and pining before I was brave enough to say anything. You seem way too calm to be having some mid-life sexual identity crisis.”

Elliot squirmed under Toby’s gaze. “I need to call and check in with Liv. Are you hungry?”

“Elliot.” Toby refused to release his hand. “Talk to me.”

“About what?” Elliot’s voice was tight.

“I want to understand where you are with this, with _us._ ”

“Toby, what do you mean where I am with _us?_ I’m here.” He grasped Toby’s hand and held it to his chest. “I’m _right_ here. Where else would I be?”

Toby was caught in a rip tide of emotion, anger and anxiety pulsing into one another and dragging Toby under the surface. “Don’t parse, you know what I mean.”

“I thought I've been pretty clear about what I want and how I feel, Toby. Do you think I'm hiding something from you? Because I’m not like that, not like _him_.” He spat out the words.

Toby leveled Elliot with a glare, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I never said you were.” He limped toward the window with as much dignity as he could manage on a full length cast. Toby closed his eyes, expecting Elliot to go to the bedroom, slam the door. Toby listened for retreating footsteps. He was surprised when Elliot moved toward him and stood at his side.

“I was a fucked up mess before _him,_ Elliot. Chris just showed up and made it worse.”

They watched nightfall take the stage, the the trees along the shore line of the lake bowing together in the wind like the little swans. Elliot reached out, running his hand along Toby’s arm and then letting it fall back to his side. The hush between the men stretched taught, each cautious of the other, hesitant to press against the tentative peace.

“My file, did it talk about what happened to my arms and legs?”

“It did.”

“Chris was part of that, he owed Vern.”

“File said he confessed, that was how they found out about Schillinger and the guard.”

“That’s right. He confessed so I would forgive him and take him back.”

Elliot was sick with the thought of Toby taking back a man who brutalized his body and his heart. He had worked with battered women and men throughout his career. How much more difficult would it be to break from abuse when your abuser was assigned to sleep in the same room. Even after Elliot’s transfer to SVU he had not given much thought to the treatment of people inside the system. It appalled Elliot that Oswald's administration knew about Toby’s branding and kept him with Schillinger, then allowed the same thing to happen after the incident with Keller. Keller.  The crime scene photos from the serial murders told the story of a pitiless, violent killer whose rage was matched only by his ruthlessness. Elliot could not imagine that a man capable of that savagery would be able to love with gentle regard and kindness. People like that did not love, they craved, they possessed, and they destroyed.

“Toby, I’m not sure where we’re going or what’s going to happen. I am a closed off asshole and I’m not good at talking about anything.” He huffed a laugh that was void joy. “But I’m good at my job. Maybe because I’m a closed off asshole or maybe because the one thing I can’t close off is being able see inside men who rape and kill.  I’ve met men like Keller. They don’t love.” Toby started to speak. “No, hear me out. I’m not saying he didn’t feel something for you, but it wasn’t love. If there is going to be an “ _us”_ , you need to understand that, because I can’t…I won’t ever feel for you or treat you the way _he_ did.”

Toby faced Elliot, anger flaring hot in his gut.   _Fuck that guy, Tobe, he’ll never understand us._ Chris’ seductive whisper tickled the hair on the back of his neck, as if the man himself were standing behind him watching the hacks move around before lights out. He wanted to rail against Elliot, to slash and rend.   _He’s just another fucking hack._ The wrath rose in an instant. Chris’ voice roared, while it chanted and fed the resentment. Toby’s fist curled and he felt his nails digging into his palm.  

“Mikey Hannon. He’s why I’m okay, with this, with _us_.”

Toby’s head shot up, surprised by the swift change in Elliot's demeanor, his eyes were unfocused as if he were searching far into the past. Chris’ voice started to fade.

“He was my best friend. I was 11 and we kissed, one time. My dad caught us.”

Elliot turned around and pushed at the waistband of his sweatpants. They pooled around his ankles. Toby was yanked from his own painful memories. The tops of Elliot’s thighs were a lattice work of scars that had silvered with age. The thickest scars were as wide as Toby’s index finger and snaked up and under the hem of Elliot’s boxer briefs toward his ass. Toby reached out and traced his hand across the ruin of Elliot’s skin before helping Elliot pull his pants back into place.

“I’ve known who I was since I was a boy." Elliot said. "I’m tired of pretending to be something I'm not for a dead man who didn’t love me anyway.”

Chris’ voice had dulled to an unintelligible murmur and Toby felt his ire ebb, leaving him confused by the emptiness left in it’s wake. 

“So am I.” Toby said and Chris’ voice was gone. The lie that sheltered Toby’s memories of Chris shattered and he saw the truth that lay among the shards. It was horrible, looking at the bodies that littered the field on which Chris and Toby had played out their version of love.  He allowed himself one last moment to revel in the memory of Chris’ lips against his own and then Tobias Beecher did the impossible.

He let go.  


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again much thanks! Real life got a little intrusive the past few days. Stupid real life. Thank you to everyone who continues to read and offer kudos and comments! 
> 
>  
> 
> Con-Crit, comments, and kudos are much appreciated and I hear that four out of five dentists recommend comments and kudos as a way of combatting tooth decay and sadness. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: References to rape and torture. Racist and bigoted nonsense spouted by bigoted awful people.

“I want my lawyer, bitch.” Joe Lopresti bellowed. “And I need to take a piss.”

Joseph Michael Lopresti was a bitter disappointment to his mother. The height and plastic doll, California good looks that had graced his father and his older brother skipped Joseph. “Joe” for short. Joe was a gaunt, drawn little fellow with a shaved head and sallow skin ravaged by teen acne. His face was pocked like the surface of the moon which he tried to hide under a patchy tangle of beard. Severe scoliosis gave Joe’s spine a permanent “S” curve that sent his shoulders inches left of center and caused his gait to hitch and drag.

Mrs. Theresa Lopresti often looked at her younger son and bemoaned the way sensible mothers were allowed to leave babies born with troubles out for the foxes and the crows.  She had reminisced about that old time wisdom when Olivia and Fin appeared on her door step to arrest Joe, too stupid to even try and run. He sat on the couch invoking his rights as a sovereign citizen and whining about the “cunt” and the “nigger” that the Zionist Occupation Government had sent to strip him of his freedom. His bleating diatribe started the moment they stepped into Mrs. Lopresti’s home and had not stopped. 

Olivia had been stuck in the grey cement room with Mrs. Lopresti’s baby for three hours when he uttered the magic word _lawyer._

“I’ll go see if I can find Detective Tutuola to take you to the bathroom and have my Captain call your lawyer.”  Olivia exited the room as Joe began to shriek about “coons” degrading the superiority of the white man.

Captain Cragen was standing outside the room, his eyebrows climbing his broad forehead as Joe wound himself into a frenzy of hate.  “He’s an intellectual.” Cragen said.

“And he smells like urine and hot dogs. I think I’m in love.” Olivia quipped.

“How did we do with the victims?”

“The first three picked him out of a sequential photo array and his DNA was at the scene where Toby was attacked.” 

“What about Toby, do we think it’s time to bring him in from the cold?”

“I think I’d feel a whole lot better about it if we knew who was behind all of this first, Captain.                         

Cragen nodded toward the interrogation room. “You don’t think your prince charming is the brains?”

Olivia and Cragen looked through the one-way glass. Lopresti was urinating into a trash can and extoling the merits of the master race. “What do you think?”

Munch sauntered toward Cragen and Benson. “Let me guess, that’s our ring leader?” He pointed to Lopresti, who had tucked himself away and had his index finger knuckle deep in his nose.

“He’s an order taker, at best. Did you find anything out about the guard?”

“Oh, you mean little Hitler’s _older brother?_ Leonard Lopresti, works as a CO at Oswald State Correctional Facility, knew Beecher, Schillinger, and Keller. A rather charming young Irish from Oz was happy to share his impressions of Officer Lopresti in return for some rather colorful reading material.”

Captain Cragen smiled. “Sounds like Beecher’s Oz lead panned out.”

“Better than we could have hoped. Mr. O’Reily is a font of knowledge. He said that Officer Lopresti is a vocal proponent of racial segregation and enjoys bandying around words best left out of polite discourse. But most important he suggested that I chat with another inmate, Robert Rebadow. Fascinating older gentleman, has regular conversations with the almighty, claims that God keeps him apprised of the comings and goings in Oz. He had an interesting story to tell me about Schillinger and his oldest son, specifically that Officer Lopresti was the one who delivered the life-limiting dose of heroin to young Schillinger at Senior Schillinger’s behest.”

“So the older Lopresti has a direct connection to the Brotherhood?” Cragen asked.

“It looks that way.” Munch said.

Olivia looked into the interrogation room. The younger Lopresti had settled down at the table, resting his head in his hands. “It’s not much to go on, what are the odds that we can get big brother in here for a chat?”

Munch laughed. “I’d say pretty good seeing as he’s currently raising hell in the squad room with baby brother’s lawyer. Mom must have called him as soon as you collared the wunderkind.”

“Who’s he got representing him?”

“Langan.”

“Figures.” Olivia’s smile was genuine. The defense attorney cost more than Olivia supposed the Lopresti’s could afford, but the case had taken on a high profile, the notoriety might be enough to offset his fee. “How do you want to play it?”

“Curious you should ask, Detective Benson.” Munch grinned, wide and toothy.

Munch spoke low to Olivia and Cragen. Cragen shook his head and returned to his office. He reckoned it was best not to know the plan. _Plausible deniability._ He thought as he sat at his desk watching Olivia approach Leonard Lopresti with a warm, open smile.

***

Olivia ushered Leonard Lopresti into an interrogation room.

“Am I under arrest?” Lopresti laughed but the mirth did not reach past the curl of his lips.

“No, Mr. Lopresti, I just figured you might be more comfortable waiting somewhere a little more private,” Olivia waited a beat. “and I wanted thank you for being so patient. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you. I imagine your squad room coffee isn’t much better than the break room swill we’ve got up at Oz.” Leonard Lopresti unleashed one-thousand kilowatts of dazzling, straight teeth in Olivia’s direction. He crossed his arms on the metal table in front of him, lacing fingers together. “I’d like to see my brother, if that’s okay.”

Len Lopresti’s long, slender legs stretched beneath the table. Olivia took her measure of the man, and estimated that at six feet, he stood almost seven inches taller than Joe. The two brothers were polar opposites, one was a twisted, pit-faced troll and the other a smooth-skinned golden child with perennial good looks.  The only shared features were a heavy, low ridge of brow and pale lapis eyes. 

“It’s not procedure, but after Mr. Langan is finished, I could probably arrange to get you a few minutes.” The wattage on Lopresti’s smile increased She softened her voice and twisted the small gold pendent resting at the base of her throat. “Professional courtesy.”

Leonard Lopresti sat back in his chair and sighed, running his hair through thick dirty blond hair. “I appreciate it, Mam. Joe’s always been a handful.”

“You can call me Olivia.”

“Olivia.” Lopresti tilted his head in thanks. “Call me Len.”

“Len.” Olivia frowned and tilted her head forward assuming her most sympathetic appearance. “If there is anything you know that could help, anything, I’d be happy to look into it.” She reached out and placed her hand over Lopresti’s.

He sat back in his chair, breaking the contact and scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.  

“You knew one of the victims, didn’t you?” Olivia asked, keeping her tone light.

“ _Victims_?” The older Lopresti looked incredulous. “You mean that faggot they found in the park?”

Olivia’s patience for Munch’s plan wore thin. Elliot was the one who was good at cozying up to these douche bags, getting in close enough to earn their trust. She had been in the room alone with Lopresti for less than five minutes and she felt she would never be able to wash herself clean of his vitriol.

She opted for a quiet nod of her head. “Beecher.”

“To-bi-as.” He mocked. “Good men are dead and that cunt walks around like he’s better than all of them. If you ask me, what came to him was his fucking due.”

“And what would that be?”

“Branded a prag when he first got to Oz, from what I hear, all he got was a friendly reminder to remember his place in the food chain.”

 _A friendly reminder._ Olivia thought. The piece they hadn’t released to the press. The cutting. The word. Prag. _Gotcha._  


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porn with Plot. Really, this is just an interlude of porny goodness with a gooey center of sweet pillow talk. 
> 
> Thank you for the comments, kudos, and sticking with the story. I promise I'll get back to plot soon. I just felt like the boys needed a break from the intensity. As always, comments and kudos keep the muse happy.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: This chapter is pretty trigger free, there is dirty talk and mentions of rimming. No references to rape and torture as in past chapters.

Elliot smiled into the darkness. He lay on his back listening to Toby’s breath snuffle and catch in his sleep. He had woken several minutes prior when Toby had jerked in the thrall of some dream and struck Elliot’s leg with his cast. He had plummeted out of his own strange dreams with a start, remembering only that Kathy had been trying to teach him to pray in a language Elliot could not understand. He took the sudden wakening as a gift and let himself relive the tender connection they had found after a day of revelations.

They had been careful with each other. Gentle kisses and unhurried caresses meant to comfort rather than explore and enflame.  He felt like teenager, tangled in emotions that were unfamiliar to him in this season of his life. He turned toward Toby, protecting his injured ribs. Elliot settled on his side and brought a hand to Toby’s cheek, brushing his fingers over the stubble and enjoying the rasp of maleness against his skin.

“Elliot, you should be sleeping.” Toby mock whispered, his voice tinged with fatigue.

“I was until someone booted me in the shin.” Elliot’s huffed. He tilted forward and skimmed his lips against Toby’s in a slow glide. Toby’s mouth opened under Elliot’s, a warm puff of breath ghosting across Elliot’s face.  Elliot’s tongue teased and tasted. Toby inched forward pressing his body against Elliot and relishing the delicious pressure when the steel of his shaft brushed against Elliot’s answering passion.

Elliot swept his mouth across Toby’s cheek and loosed a passionate growl in Toby’s ear. “I want you.”

“Elliot.” Toby gasped at the weight of raw emotion Elliot imbued in those three words. He drew his head back, licking into Elliot’s mouth, his hands roving beneath Elliot’s clothing, memorizing the topography of his new lover’s body with his fingertips.

Elliot tugged at the hem of the Toby’s sleep shirt and Toby stripped it off with an impatient moan. Elliot’s hand trailed over Toby’s chest, stopping when he reached the pale rose of Toby’s nipples. He rolled one hardening bud between his fingers and then the other, edging the flesh with increasing pressure until Toby shivered beneath his touch. Elliot’s dove forward to lick and bite, forgetting the limitations of his healing body.

“Goddammit, not fucking again!” He hissed as he reeled back, clutching his ribs and panting. Toby and Elliot’s eyes met and they began to laugh aloud, and earnest, joyful sound.

“Someday.” Elliot shook his head as their laughter subsided.

“Will there be?”

“Will there be what?” Elliot asked.

“A someday?”

“I hope so, when all this is done.”

“You mean?”

“I mean dating like normal people, Toby.  I mean taking you to dinner or to a movie and wondering if the evening is going to end with me sticking my foot in my mouth like an idiot or if you will let me kiss you,” Elliot traced Toby’s bottom lip with his thumb. Toby bit at the tip, then flicked his tongue across the pad giving it a gentle suck. “maybe even take you home.” He dropped his thumb, wet from Toby’s mouth and ran it across Toby’s nipple watching it harden, then swept lower and cupped Toby’s pulsing hardness in his palm.

Elliot’s mind spun. He had been a virgin when he and Kathy had met. He had no sexual experience at seventeen, aside from a fumbling at Susie Milligan’s breasts in a school stairwell. The only man’s body he had ever touched for pleasure was his own. He knew what he liked, what swift, strong grip to use when he needed quick relief. Kathy had been a giving and careful lover when their relationship was still unfettered by years, and children, and a job that gnawed on Elliot’s soul. Toby’s body was an undiscovered country, a land of long abandon fantasies that had been throttled down by a stern Catholic upbringing, his bastard father, and his own fear.

“Toby,” Elliot crooned. “Tell me how I should touch you.”

Toby gathered Elliot’s hand in his own and brought Elliot’s knuckles to his lips. He kissed his hand and then slid from the bed. Elliot started to protest and Toby silenced him with a heated gaze as took off his shorts and boxers leaving him naked, the ruddy head of his cock glistening in the weak moonlight. He slipped back into bed beside Elliot and lay on his back, his head turned to capture Elliot’s eyes.

“Watch me.” Toby stroked himself from root to tip, swiping his thumb across the tip and smearing the slick of his pre-come on his shaft. He watched as Elliot’s eyes shifted from his face to the velvet steel in his grasp. He gasped, his other hand dropping to caress and roll his balls.

“Jesus, Toby.” Elliot voice was thick with lust and chafed against his throat. “Talk to me.”

Toby’s breath quickened as he started to thrust into his fist. “I’d want your body over mine, Elliot, weighing me down. I’d want to feel you pressing me into the mattress, feel your cock beside mine, so wet that we wouldn’t even need lube, because we’d both be leaking and so very, fucking hard.”

Elliot groaned and reached for his own hardness inside his sweatpants and Toby arched an eyebrow. Elliot wriggled the waist down so that his own cock sprung free. His thighs shook as he took himself in hand.

Toby raised one knee and let it splay wide and wanton. “Maybe I’d tell you to sit back Elliot while I stretched myself open for you. Would you like that? If I draped myself across your lap, slicked up my own fingers, and fucked myself with them while you watched.” Elliot could feel the heat radiating from Toby’s body. He was covered with a light sheen of sweat and felt delicious swells of desire washing through him as Toby spoke between hitched breaths and whimpers of pleasure.

“Fuck, Elliot. Maybe I’d flip you over and spread you open with my tongue until you couldn’t tell where you ended and I began. I’d suck you and lick you while you shivered and moaned underneath me. Would you like that Elliot? Do you think I could make you come untouched with just my tongue inside you?”

Elliot gasped as his orgasm spiraled through him like a flash fire, scorching his nerve endings. He heard Toby groan out his own release seconds after.

Both men lay panting in the darkness until Toby got up and hobbled the bathroom to fetch a washcloth. He cleaned them both, helped Elliot shimmy his sweatpants back up and redressed for bed to stave off the chill that would come when the fire died in the early morning hours without either of them awake to keep it alive.

Elliot watched Toby move through the night. Elliot’s body was warm, his limbs still tingling. Toby crawled into bed beside him, his own expression relaxed, sated. Toby turned his back to Elliot and felt Elliot’s hand stretch across his chest pulling him tight against Elliot’s body.  He felt Elliot’s lips caress the shell of his ear.

“There will be a someday, Toby. It will come sooner than you think.”

Toby curled his fingers around Elliot’s hand and snuggled closer. “Not soon enough.” A smile played at his lips as he slid into sleep.  


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When last we left our intrepid Detectives of the 1-6, Olivia had felt they might actually have a lead. Elliot and Toby were up to some well-earned NC-17 shenanigans. 
> 
> Thank you all for your comments and kudos. As always you thoughtful Con-crit, kudos, and comments are more than welcome and will help keep the spooky ghosts away in this season of most haunting holidays! Salt and a magic Colt 45 also help, but that's another fandom altogether.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Some reference to rape and torture but nothing gratuitous or specific.

Christoph Metzger was compact in stature. He lounged in a chair in the interrogation room, slouching like he found his detention a necessary distraction. He was well-toned, with wiry muscles wound around a sturdy frame, ash blond hair cropped close to his scalp, and dull eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate. His cousin Carl, had been a mountain of brute muscle and mean. Christoph prided himself on being more circumspect than most of his Aryan brothers. So he remained calm when a black detective walked into the room with a woman and kicked the leg of his chair.

“What kind of name is Christoph?  That German?”

“Tutuola? Your _government_ name not good enough for you, son?”

Olivia tuned out the stupidity that was pouring from the mouth of the Nazi. Lopresti had been easy to break once he had made the fatal error of letting a detail from the crimes slip. Then it was all too simple to unravel this Gordian knot of a case. Lopresti led them to  Christoph Metzger, who entertained delusions of grandeur in the form of usurping power from the current leadership of the Aryan Brotherhood. He chose to do so by capturing and controlling Schillinger’s property, his _prags_. Beecher was Metzger’s coup d’état, a finishing move meant to endear him to the Brotherhood and elucidate his clear superiority and leadership. Olivia wondered why stupid and destructive so often inhabited the same body.

 _At it’s best, it’s a convoluted excuse to be a sadistic asshole._ Olivia had said to the Captain when she was laying out the information Lopresti had given her during the interrogation. Turns out Lopresti was not as weathered and stoic as he portrayed himself to be and a few well placed references to time in Oswald had been enough to have the pathetic worm wriggling on the end of an undercover hook. He wore a wire to catch the fish and the fish had bitten. Then it was warrants and questions and an interrogation that was going to take all night, _if_ they were lucky. If they were not lucky they would have to let Metzger go and find more evidence. Olivia checked back into the interrogation.

“L-A-W-Y-E-R. That spells lawyer, Detective. I trust that just because you got let in on a quota, your more competent colleagues have taken the time to educate you on the finer points of police work.”

Olivia watched the small vein in Fin’s temple throb and wondered how long little Hitler had before Fin decided he’d had enough and bounced the man’s head off the table.

Munch knocked and stuck his head in the interrogation room. “May I borrow you two for a minute?” Olivia looked to Fin who smiled. She noted the vein had settled and they stepped out of the room.

“Got something?” Fin was calm now, relieved. Metzger asking for a lawyer had bought them some time to dig up more evidence.

“Do I ever!” Munch crowed, his mouth splitting into a broad smile. “Turns out Mr. Metzger in there is a little OCD about his planning and felt the need to document everything. Dumb mope.” Munch held up a spiral bound notebook in a plastic evidence bag. “Voila! His dastardly plan.”

“Was there more to it than taking over the Nazi’s?” Fin asked, confusion twisting his mouth into frown.

“Oh, no, that was definitely his end game. I just don’t think he realized the Nazi’s don’t really care about him. Huang ran it up the chain and it turns out that Long Island is home base for the Nazi party in New York. Huang's FBI buddy said Metzger is a small fry, said that the Aryans look at him as kind of a joke. I guess Metzger thought Beecher would buy him some street cred. ”

“Why?” Olivia asked.

“Remember the chemical attack that killed a bunch of Aryans and some guards at Oz a few years back?”

Fin and Olivia nodded

“Well, turns out the guy who ordered that threw himself off the second tier in Em City, that experimental unit in Oz.”

Olivia’s eyes widened. She remembered the information from Toby’s file. “Chris Keller?”

“That’s the man. Rumor had it, Keller actually did the deed _for_ Beecher, to keep the Nazi’s off their backs after Keller orchestrated Schillinger’s murder.”

Olivia rubbed her temples. She felt a headache coming on fast. “So, Metzger wants to rule the Brotherhood but the Brotherhood…”

“Doesn’t care what Metzger wants.” Munch huffed a joyless laugh. “FBI chatter says Metzger is a laughingstock. Schillinger had lost his jizz _way_ before he got shanked and these Einsteins don’t have enough brain power to sustain a memory for that long, regardless. So, the get back is really all about Metzger being a narcissistic asshole. The Brotherhood could care less about Beecher or any of the other poor guys that Metzger went after.”

“So Metzger is an idiot. The Brotherhood thinks he’s a joke.” Olivia ticked off facts on her fingers. “Four men have been brutally raped. My partner was almost killed. And it was for nothing?” Olivia’s jaw hung open, disgusted.

Fin shook his head. “No one is that dumb.” Munch raised an eyebrow and Fin shrugged. “Okay, this guy may be that dumb.”

“What about the leak in the department?” Olivia asked.

“Turns out the Metzger family tree is immense. His other cousin, Gerald Forst, works down in Evidence.”

“Do we need to pick him up?”

“Nope.” Munch said. “Captain rounded him up, gave him one of those _dad is so disappointed in you_ looks and he caved. Forst would have given up his grandmother if he had anything on her.”

Munch, Fin, and Olivia looked into the interrogation room and watched Christoph Metzger sprawl back in the rickety metal chair like he owned the universe.

Casey Novak rounded the corner and narrowed her eyes at the group of detectives. “Am I interrupting something?”

Olivia bit her lower lip. “He lawyered up, so Munch was filling us in on what they found at Metzger’s apartment.”

Novak’s face blossomed into a predatory grin. “Captain Cragen gave me the details. It’s about time, this case has been a nightmare.”

“Casey,” Olivia began, her hackles rising to defend herself and her colleagues.

“No, I’m not saying that you guys haven’t done a great job. This case has been awful, I'm ready for it to be over. The fact that this idiot’s inanity has caused so much misery _and_ has a body count repulses me.”

Munch agreed and wandered back to his desk to finish logging evidence.

“Should we leave him in there until his lawyer gets here?”  Olivia asked.

“Nah, put him in lock up. I don’t want _anything_ to get in the way of prosecuting this dirt bag.”

Olivia and Fin opened the door to the interrogation room when Casey called back over her shoulder. “And Olivia, call Elliot and tell him to come home. His vacation is over.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been out of work for the past several months. Illness is dumb, but is really conducive to mid-week updates. Not so much now that I am feeling better and getting back to the land of working, which means less time for fun projects. Boo. Anyway, short chapter. I promise the next one will be longer. 
> 
> Thanks everyone for comments, kudos, and Con-crit. Remember they keep the muse happy and when she's happy she talks to me instead of flopping in a Sherlockian sulk or shooting at the wall paper. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: PTSD panic attack symptoms. 
> 
> **The quote "Paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much, much better" is from the song "Language is a Virus" by Laurie Anderson.
> 
> "The Old Woman in the Woods" is one of those fabulous Irish folk songs that is wonderfully grisly and morbid. Here is the link to The Dubliners singing it the actual song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6qSuoUPGEA. 
> 
> Youtube is A-mazing. "Weile" is pronounced "Wheel-ya", "Waile" is pronounced "Wall-ya" ,and "Saile" is pronounced "Sall-ya." I don't know what it says about me that I tried out for my third grade talent show with this song. Thankfully it was the 1970s then and no one called CPS to investigate my parents.

_Paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much, much better.**_ The scrap of song caught in the last shred of Toby’s dream floated to the surface of his wakefulness. He watched dawn creep over the window sill, reveling in the subtle shift of light and remembering when there was no gradual sneaking dawn. All he had for years was the bellowing call of count and the chunk and click of overhead fluorescent lights chasing the shadows back beneath the bunk beds and into the corners. Toby had made finding a place after he was released a treatise on the the quality of light. He saw apartment after apartment, turning down one after another and driving his real estate agent to distraction. Sassa Jorgensen was a small-boned woman with pale blond hair tortured into a tight bun. She had the physical delicacy of a sparrow and the tenacity of the Vikings she claimed as long dead kin.  Sassa had argued each rejection with Toby until she brought him to the Pierhouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park. He knew Sassa was putting _price is not an issue_ to the test when he saw the building’s glass and steel façade, built with a nod to the Mid-Century Modernists with its planted terraces and lush green spaces.

Each apartment offered stunning views of the city and the water. Toby needed his first sight every morning to be the wide expanse of city, sky, and water after living for almost a decade in a 6x9 of plexi, concrete, and steel. He would be happy to be home, in his own bed, maybe with Elliot as company. _Maybe._ He hoped, but he was not going to hold his breath and that was why he was keeping the breaking day company.

 _Paradise is exactly like where you are…right…now._ Olivia had called after midnight. She told Elliot the case was over and they were being called home. _Home._ Toby had heard a distant echo of Chris’ voice.   _Not by a long shot, Tobe._ Toby rubbed his face against the rough cotton of his pillow case and tried to drown out the sounds in his own mind. _I let you go Chris, goddammit. I said goodbye. Leave me alone._

 _Only much, much, better._ There was a chuckle that made Toby shiver. It was rumbling, somnolent. A far off laugh, like Chris was almost out of ear shot but wanted to make sure Toby heard the sex that threaded through every sound that fell from his lips.  This was Chris at his finest, his tone pitched low meant to twist Toby’s guts with need. The words floating on the whisper of a memory into the present. _Toby, you sexy motherfucker, you thought you could get rid of me that easy?_

Toby’s calm crumbled as his mind began to whirl. _The man in the moon is making his way to Norridge or rolling back up a hill to the sky._ Toby’s thoughts were a jumbled hash of idioms and nursery rhymes. _There was an old woman who lived in the woods, weile, weile, waile._  Hackneyed verses capered through his mind like a gang of capricious, cruel children who took their pleasures from taunting the town witch and tying cans to stray cats.  He wondered when he became a man who found the retreat into madness a comfort. Toby shifted onto his back and stared at the exposed beams of the ceiling. _She had a baby three months old, down by the river Saile._ Elliot snuffled in his sleep, a large hand reaching across the space between them and settling on Toby’s stomach, a warm, comforting weight.

 _She had a penknife six inches long, weile, weile, waile._ A decade later he could still smell men’s speed stick and feel the cool, smooth texture of Vern’s cheek beneath his lips. _Please sir may I fuck my wife._ He shuddered. _Where’s my goodnight kiss?_ The feel of the bunk bed’s metal frame and the slip of leather around his wrists lurked within the shadows of his awareness. _Paradise, is exactly like where you are right now.**_ The memories never went away. The scrape of straw and dirt against his chest and the sharp sting of a box cutter carving his flesh. Toby felt his chest heaving as he struggled to get his breath. _Only much, much better.**_

Toby tried to swing himself upright but his body refused to obey, paralyzed by the strange language of grief and fatigue that coursed through his limbs. _She stuck that knife in the baby’s head, weile, weile, waile_. The face of the rough beam of wood above his head was interrupted by a swirling, dark knot. Toby imagined the bite of the splinters that would come from running his hand across its surface. Toby’s face was bathed in a sheen of frigid sweat and he became aware of a guttural groaning rolling around the depth of his throat. _The longer she stuck it, the harder it bled, down by the river Saile._

“Toby?” Elliot roused, propping himself on one elbow.

 _Paradise…_ “Go back to sleep, El.” _Weile, Weile, Waile._ Something in Toby’s tone shook the slumber from Elliot with the force of a bucket of freezing water. Toby managed to sit up, bent in half with his head between his knees.

“Hey.” Elliot sat up and saw Toby’s shoulders heaving, pulling air into his lungs like a drowning man breeching the ocean’s surface. Elliot slid his hand into the hollow of Toby’s lower back. _A perfect fit._ A fleeting thought he brushed away like rain in his eyes. “Toby, I need you to stay with me.”

The laugh that came from Toby’s throat was a dying, humorless screech of sound. Elliot remembered a documentary about the beef industry that his daughter Kathleen had made him watch when she had been flirting with vegetarianism and politics. It sounded like the cries of a steer that had been broken beyond endurance, legs useless, bulldozed out of the way like so much animated, useless flesh. Elliot’s scalp crawled.

“Home.” Toby gasped, eyes wide with fear. _The longer she stuck it._ “Elliot.” _The harder it bled._

“Toby, I need you to do me a favor.” He knelt in front of Toby, ignoring the pull of his broken ribs.

Toby nodded. _Weile, Weile, Weile._

“Don’t think of a red truck.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh heavens...My muse took off when my Lupus kicked in and it is has been many, many moons since I have posted to this story. But fear not, we are coming to a close and my prospects for being healthy are improving every day, which means a healthy, happy, busy muse!
> 
> Thank you everyone who is reading for sticking with this story and continuing to hang in there through my challenges. I promise weekly updates from here on in, until the end. Then it's over to the Sherlock fandom for a new story that I have a-brewin'!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Coming out, mentions of past child abuse related to homophobia and intolerance. Mention of rape, in past. Self-loathing.

Elliot threaded his fingers through Toby’s and held on during the drive back to New York, like his touch alone could keep Toby tethered in this reality. The nightmare Toby had experienced was brutal and the panic that followed rivaled the shrieking fear that had plagued him his first years in Oz. The guttural moaning cry so like when he had learned that it his own son’s shredded, torn skin and rough edged bone that had shut down the Oz mail room. _Inconsolable,_ Toby thought as he ran his thumb over the delicate skin where Elliot’s wrist met his palm, _but he managed to bring me back._ Toby turned his head toward Elliot and wondered how this man had taken residence in his heart when Toby had been so careful to lock that door after Chris had died. Elliot and his ridiculous red truck story had brought him back from the darkness. His rumbling voice and calloused hands had quieted the incessant dirge of nursery rhymes that cavorted through his mind when the memories were the strongest.

The two men were swept apart when they arrived at the 16th Precinct. Olivia, Elliot’s partner, had led Toby to a small interview room and shown him photos of grave faced men. Among the pictures were the animals who had raped and brutalized him. Toby responded to their photos with a curt nod and a choked affirmative. He felt Olivia’s eyes on him as she showed him each picture, one after another. Her stare was weighted with more than a detective’s curiosity. She knew something had transpired between he and Elliot.  Toby quashed the urge to plead with her to understand when he thought he saw harsh judgment in stern line of her mouth and the set of her jaw. _Let me have this._  He wanted to beg, knowing that she would be unmoved. A relationship with a man like him, an ex-con, could break Elliot, but Toby was who he was and not even Elliot’s gentle attentions and his own self-imposed exile could change what he had done and what had been done to him. 

Toby lingered near the elevators after he had finished with Olivia. He watched Elliott through the arch leading into the squad room as Elliot’s Captain and Detective Tutuola filled him in on the case. Toby sipped at a scalding cup of bitter coffee to chase down a day old donut. He watched Elliot Stabler while he waited.  Elliot was sure and good. He was a solid back and strong, broad shoulders that strained against the weight of a violent world. Elliot was the scent of pine, wormwood, and rosemary that hung around his neck and wrists where he dabbed the cologne his oldest daughter had purchased him for Christmas. He was rough-skinned hands that could wield a gun and stroke Toby to hardness. He was the rasping gasp of breath in the dark and the whispered promise _you don’t have to be alone._  

Toby’s gut clenched. He was nothing. An empty space where a man used to stand. He was a doppelganger who wore a slew of names.   _97B412. Bitcher. Beach Ball. Slut. Prag._ The last carved into his skin. A reminder to accompany the brand he was given on his first day in hell. He was the _husband-father-son_ who had led his wife, child, and father to their deaths. He was a void that threatened to pull Elliot Stabler past his event horizon and into the crushing blackness that lived in his heart.

The elevator doors opened behind him with a metallic ding, releasing a tide of people that jostled Toby’s shoulders and made him cringe with their closeness.

Toby took one final look at Elliot, memorized the patrician line of his nose and the gentle pull of his kind smile. He stepped onto the elevator and back into the loneliness that had kept the nightmares and memories at bay.

****

Elliot glanced away from Captain Cragen in time to catch Toby’s face disappearing behind the elevator doors.  He shot out of his seat as Olivia wandered back to her desk with a cup of coffee.

“El?”

“Hey Munch.” He ignored Olivia and called out over the din of the squad room.

“Yes, my friend?”

“Did Beecher tell you he was leaving?” 

Munch frowned. “No, he’s over by the…” Munch looked around the squad room, then back to Elliot, shrugging. “Liv already got his statement, did you need him for something else?”

Captain Cragen sauntered back toward his office. “We have his address. It’s not like we don’t know where to find him. Elliot go home and get some rest. I don’t want to see you in here until next Tuesday.”

It was Thursday. Elliot cringed at the idea of being out of the loop for four days, but that also gave him time with Toby outside of a safe house. His stomach flipped and he felt the uneasy tug of doubt in his belly. He had hoped Toby would wait for him so that they could talk, maybe plan a night together with food that came from somewhere other than a gas station.  Elliot was adrift, coming back to the City and into the squad room had felt like stepping off the moon.

“Elliot, What’s going on?”

“Leave it, Olivia.” He snapped, gathering up his coat and car keys. Olivia grabbed his elbow and pulled him toward the crib, her fingers digging into his arm.  She slammed the door and made a cursory survey of the room to make sure they were alone.

“Elliot.”

“Olivia.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m going home.”

“Don’t’ play me for stupid.”

Elliot bristled for a moment and then deflated. He was exhausted and did not have the energy to fight with Olivia. She as much a part of his family, part of himself, as Kathy or the kids. He loved and trusted her with his life and although he wanted to hoard the feelings he had for Toby and let them grow in seclusion, he knew how hurt she would be if she thought he would not or could not confide in her.

“Liv, it’s complicated.” A sculpted eyebrow shot up and Elliot smiled in spite of his fear. “Okay, it’s not _that_ complicated. I can relate to him. I liked…spending time with him.”

“I buy that, he seems like an intelligent guy for an ex-con, but the case is over. You need to let him get on with his life and start to heal on his own.”

“All of a sudden you have a problem following up with witnesses? Getting involved?" Elliot took a beat but Olivia didn't rise to take the bait. He scrubbed at his face with his hand, changing tactics. "What if I don’t want to?”

“Don’t want to what?”

“Don’t want to leave him alone. He saved my life, that counts for something, Olivia. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. He’s not just an _ex-con_ , he’s a friend.”

“He’s a friend now? Have you thought about what a friendship with this guy would mean?  You have enough problems with IAB, what happens if they find out your hanging out with an ex-con who killed a child.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I know that, Elliot. That man has been through hell. Yes, saving your life counts for something. It’s enough for me. The balance sheet has entries on both sides as far as I'm concerned, but Tucker isn’t going to give a crap. He only cares about Beecher's record and Beecher is a drunk and an addict who was connected to who knows how many deaths while he was inside. Jesus, Elliot, his lover was a serial killer that bore a striking resemblance to you. That IAB rat is going to have a field day when he comes after you.  Don’t you care about that?”

Elliot shrugged. “I don’t.”

Olivia stared, her mouth hung open. She brushed her hair from her face as she slumped onto the lower bunk of the nearest bed. “So everything you’ve worked for, your career, it’s worth less than a friendship with a person you've just met?”

Elliot sat beside Olivia. He studied his hands, the callouses on his fingers and the scars on his knuckles. “It’s more than that.”

“More than what?”  She waited. “You’re going to have to help me out here, El.”

“I’m...”  He paused then let the words spill from his mouth. “I’m gay, Olivia.” The truth blossomed in the center of his chest. The pain that he carried from years of denial faded a little with the telling.

“Oh…” She bit at her full bottom lip. “You’re gay?”

“I’m gay.”

“Are you sure?

Elliot nodded, knowing better than to be offended by the question. Olivia asked because she wanted the truth, not because she wanted to bully him into another lie. She wasn’t judging him or testing his resolve. She was his friend, his _partner._  She would have his back and had been trying, through this awkward minefield of a conversation, to protect him from ruining his life.

“Kathy? The kids?”

“I loved her. I did. I still do, in a way, but it’s not the same. I love my children. I wouldn’t trade them for anything, but I’m also tired, Liv. I’m so tired of being angry.”

“Angry with who?”

“My father. I knew when I was 11, my dad caught me kissing another boy. Tried to beat it out of me.”  Olivia cringed. “Myself, for lying to everyone in my life, for every time I made some wise ass, bigoted remark and heard my dad’s voice instead of mine.”

Olivia nodded and leaned forward resting her elbows on her knees, letting her head hang. “I support you. I trust you. It doesn’t change who Beecher is, though. Doesn’t change what a relationship with him could do to your career.”

“I know.”

“Do you love him?”

Elliot huffed a laugh. “I’ve known him less than a month, Liv. I like him.” She rolled her eyes and nudged his knee with her own. “I could though.  I think I could...love him. He's...different. Real.”

“He's a little nuts, but then so are you, so I guess that makes sense." She laughed. "You're going to need to keep it on the QT for awhile. You know, until this case is over and then some. Does he feel the same way about you?”

“I thought he did, then he took off, and now I’m not so sure.”

 “He’s been through a lot, Elliot. It’s going to take time. Is he even safe to be around? You know, with the Brotherhood and his past. Are you ready to sign up for that? To sign your kids up for that?”

“I guess I’ll find out. If he’ll see me.”

Olivia stood up and brushed off her jeans then started for the door, when she reached it she turned to look at Elliot, still seated on the bunk bed. “Are you coming?”

“Where?”

“Brooklyn.” She stared toward the ceiling like Elliot was being thick-headed on purpose. “Did you plan on texting him? Maybe pass him a note in study hall? You’re not 12, Elliot, you need to have this conversation in person.”

“And you’re going to drive? Are you going to chaperone, too?”

Olivia scrunched her nose up and grimaced. “Yes I’m driving. I know how you are when you’re keyed up. I’d rather spare unwitting motorists and cabbies from having the full Stabler-in-Crisis experience. As for a chaperone, I think I’ll wait outside. If it goes well, text me and I’ll leave. If it doesn’t, I’m your friend, Elliot. You didn’t tell me when you and Kathy first split. Let me be there this time.”

“Thanks, Liv.” Elliot’s voice was choked rough with emotion.

“You’re welcome.” She clasped her hand on his shoulder as he passed her in the doorway. Their eyes met and he saw the concern and care she felt for him painted in the lines around her mouth and the creases of her forehead. “I mean it, Elliot. I’m here, no matter what.”

He covered her hand with his own and squeezed. “I believe you. Now let's go to Brooklyn.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it, one final short chapter. I felt it was time to let these boys spin forward into the ether on their own. Thank you so much for reading and coming along on this journey. Thanks for the kudos and comments. It means a lot, especially after such a challenging period of time. 
> 
> I'm glad you enjoyed this story, please feel free to check me out on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/leaveittothebees. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Peace and ponies for everyone!

The east river’s waters were India ink splashed with rippling streaks of light from Manhattan. Toby sat on the reclaimed heartwood pine floor, his good knee drawn up to his chest, as he watched the night pass. Tatters of clouds skated across the sky. His wounds were healing. The scars on his chest pulsed with the bizarre numbing ache that accompanies deep slashes. His bruises had faded, the deepest ones, on his back and hips were no longer virulent purples and blacks. Toby’s leg itched beneath the cast. The doctor had said the cast would be on for at least six weeks, closer to eight. He tallied up the time since the attack.  It had been about five weeks. More than half-way home. Five weeks spent tucked under Elliot’s wing.

_Elliot._

Toby closed his eyes and let himself remember the man’s hands roaming across his skin, so gentle in the places he had been hurt, but strong, unafraid of Toby’s scars and the history behind each one. There might have been something there, if they had met at another time, if he had not fucked his life up in such a stunning and irrevocable way. Best to live with stolen moments then to wreck someone else by drawing them into his private insanity. Maybe after he had some time with Dr. Huang he would be right _enough_ to try. They might never be more than friends, but he would take what he could get.

The electric chime of the door startled him out of his reverie. 

“You left.”  Elliot stood in the doorway, hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets.

Toby stared.

“I thought you might wait.” Elliot stammered. “I was hoping you would wait for me.”

“Elliot…”

“I mean, after everything, I thought…I was hoping we could talk.”

Toby watched Elliot stumble over his words and a small seedling of hope bloomed in his chest. He _wanted_. He _needed_  to feel warm again, to feel human. He wanted to laugh with someone and _have_ the things that other people took for granted, like lying in bed with someone who saw him as a man not a fucked up amalgamation of mistakes and trauma. He chanced a glance into Elliot’s eyes, felt the way Elliot was looking at him with hope and longing. Maybe there was a chance for them, maybe not. It could crash and burn, but then again...

Toby stepped forward and took Elliot’s hand.

Maybe this was the beginning after all.

**END**


End file.
